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Philadelphia, PA - From January 9^th through 27^th, The Wilma Theater will present the first ever DanceBoom! festival. This new series will showcase six of Philadelphia's most innovative dance companies, as well as the works of seven local choreographers comprising Seven! The Philadelphia Choreographers Program. The companies performing are Court, Flamenco Ole!, Group Motion Company, Headlong Dance Theater, Phrenic New Ballet and SCRAP Performance Group. The choreographers involved in Seven! The Philadelphia Choreographer's Program include Robert Burden, Nichole Canuso, the late Leon Evans II, Jeanne Ruddy, Brian Sanders, Rebecca Sloan and Leah Stein.

Nick Stuccio, co-founder and Producing Director of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, is the curator for DanceBoom! "There is a shortage of presentation opportunities for Philadelphia Dance. There are too few presenters and insufficient venues for proper presentation. This festival - with the aid of the Wilma's expertise - is intended to help dance artists do what they do best: produce work. We have selected companies from diverse forms of dance (modern, post modern, ballet, culture-specific, etc.) to give audiences the chance to sample a representative cross-section of the abundance of great dance in this city," he explained.

"Having once been a fledgling artistic company that relied on others' professional expertise, we are eager to extend our hands to Philadelphia's burgeoning dance companies," said Artistic Director Blanka Zizka. "We are excited to provide regional audiences an opportunity to see diverse, high-quality, dance companies performing in a state-of-the-art venue. Jiri and I have a great love of dance and are excited to expose Wilma and Philadelphia audiences to innovative dance companies that they may otherwise not see."

The Wilma Theater, built with a sprung floor in 1996, has a history of presenting dance. In 1999, eight sold-out performances of Noche Flamenca graced the stage with their high-energy flamenco dancing. The summer of 2000 saw Rennie Harris Puremovement's presentation of Rome & Jewels on the Wilma stage and the Philadelphia debut of Jeanne Ruddy Dance.

DanceBoom! Is made possible through a generous grant from Dance Advance, a program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by Drexel University. Dance Advance targets funding to projects of outstanding merit within the five-county Philadelphia region. Projects can embrace a variety of artistic needs: research and development, rehearsal and creation or production and presentation. All styles, genres and cultural traditions in dance are eligible to be supported.

The Pew Charitable Trusts support nonprofit activities in the areas of culture, education, the environment, health and human services, public policy and religion. Based in Philadelphia, the Trusts make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems. In 2000, with approximately $4.9 billion in assets, the Trust committed over $235 million to 302 nonprofit organizations.

Wednesday, January 9, 7:30pm

Friday, January 18, 8:00pm

To kick off DanceBoom!, the Wilma will present the work of seven unique choreographers on one program.

Nichole Canuso of the Moxie Dance Collective will present the premiere of her new piece The Faulty Lens, which highlights the humor and pathos in misunderstandings. Eleone Dance Theater will present two pieces choreographed by the late E. Leon Evans II: Oluwa, a tribute to African heritage and Bridge over Troubled Water, an excerpt from Eleone Dance's holiday production of Carols in Color. Jeanne Ruddy will present Significant Soil, a work created when Ruddy herself was confronted with a serious illness. Her reaction to this illness is the subject of the piece. Brian Sanders, founder of Junk Dance Company, will present two excerpts from his upcoming 2002 Philadelphia Fringe Festival show, Drag Race. Leah Stein, founder of Leah Stein Dance Company, will present Dusk, a solo work with original text. Rebecca Sloan, co-founder of The Bald Mermaids, will present an excerpt of her new evening-length work The Three Evils, based on the three monkeys. Robert Burden of Tap Team Two & Co. will perform Origins of Tap, which spans tap's history from the rhythms of yesteryear Aftrica and Ireland, to the rhythms of present day America.

Thursday, January 10, 7:30pm

Saturday, January 19, 8:00pm

Thursday January 24, 7:30pm

Headlong Dance Theater, a Bessie Award-winning company known for their accessibility and sophistication, mixes formalism, pop culture and physicality to create vibrant, hilarious dance theatre. Headlong will premiere an evening of three new works in a program that promises humor, beauty and daredevil action. Subirdia is about bird-love in the Atomic Age. In it, one bird suspects that a blinking satellite passing by might hold the astronaut answer to her dreams. Gracelessness lacks grace, elegance or charm, and is a dance of a people lost, grieving, and blind, in a time without a sense of right or propriety. Their final piece, Thrashers is simply a dance of full-tilt energy.

Friday, January 11, 8:00pm

Wednesday, January 16, 7:30pm

Sunday, January 27, 2:00pm

Flamenco Ole!, founded in 1986 under the Artistic leadership of Julia Lopez, will present two pieces. El Rocio, a new work choreographed by acclaimed Spanish Flamenco artist Antonio Granjero, features several accomplished Spanish guest singers and dancers, and reflects Flamenco as it is evolving in Spain. Café de Chinitas, or Café Songs is inspired by the poem by Frederico Garcia Lorca, and choreographed by Luis Montero. It captures the essence of Spain's cafes in the late 1800's. The Musical Director/guitarist for the program is Carlos Rubio.

Phrenic New Ballet and Court

Saturday, January 12, 8:00pm

Thursday January 17, 7:30pm

Friday, January 25, 8:00pm

As part of a double-bill, Phrenic New Ballet will present Frequencies, a highly interactive ballet that marks the first major collaboration between choreographer/dancer Matthew Neenan and filmmaker Tobin Rothlein. Frequencies combines dance and filmmaking in rich layers with a variety of musical themes that ends with hope and humor. Rothlein projects video onto fabric, screens, and the dancers themselves. The ballet was inspired by the story of Jacob in the Old Testament.

Hailed as Philadelphia's most madcap movement artist, Paule Turner (a.k.a. Duchess) has made the bold transition from independent artist to artistic director of the newly established Court ensemble. For the second part of the double-bill, Court will stage MEDEA: Love is The Devil, an original interdisciplinary deconstruction of Euripides' Medea designed with text, song, physical theater, live original music, and dance.

Group Motion Company and SCRAP Performance Group

Sunday, January 13, 7:30pm

Sunday, January 20, 2:00pm

Saturday, January 26, 8:00pm

Two established Philadelphia modern dance companies with a similar style of creating new work, based strongly in improvisation of dancers, will present a double-bill:

Under the direction of Manfred Fischbeck, Group Motion Company is an internationally recognized dance theater ensemble of versatile artists that meld dance, theater, music and visual arts into a provocative and innovative performance experience. Known for its collaboration with renowned artist form all fields, Group Motion Company will present The Hiding Owl, based on a painting by Cypriot painter Yiorgos Skotinos, and The Other Side, a two-part multi-media work investigating the larger space and the unspoken territories of "self" and "relationships."

Known for their multimedia dance theater events, the artists/artistic directors of SCRAP, Myra Bazell, Katherine Livingston, and Eric Schoe`fer, share an aesthetic of charged physicality, theatricality and unconventional use of performance space. SCRAP will stage three separate pieces: Laughing in Brackish Water, a highly physical, sexy postmodern movement, Open Circuit, which explores the nervous system and how nervous impulses are interpreted and rhythmically altered in movement, and a premiere that is still being developed.

Tickets for DanceBoom! Range from $15 - $20 per show, or three performances for $40. Opening night tickets are $35 and $100. $35 tickets include a post-show party hosted by Cuba Libra in the Wilma Theater lobby. $100 tickets include the post-show party, and a pre-show reception hosted by the Ritz Carlton Hotel in the Wilma Theater lobby. For more information about the DanceBoom! series or to purchase tickets, contact The Wilma Theater Box Office at (215) 546-7824.

Wednesday, January 9, 7:30pm - Seven! The Philadelphia Choreographers Program

Thursday, January 10, 7:30pm - Headlong Dance Theater

Friday, January 11, 8:00pm - Flamenco Ole!

Saturday, January 12, 8:00pm - Phrenic New Ballet and Court

Sunday January 13, 7:30pm - Group Motion and SCRAP Performance Group

Wednesday, January 16, 7:30pm - Flamenco Ole!

Thursday, January 17, 7:30pm - Phrenic New Ballet and Court

Friday, January 18, 8:00pm - Seven! The Philadelphia Choreographers Program

Saturday, January 19, 8:00pm - Headlong Dance Theater

Sunday January 20, 2:00pm - Group Motion and SCRAP Performance Group

Thursday, January 24, 7:30pm - Headlong Dance Theater

Friday, January 25, 8:00pm - Phrenic New Ballet and Court

Saturday, January 26, 8:00pm - Group Motion and SCRAP Performance Group

Sunday January 27, 2:00pm - Flamenco Ole!

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