ADF’s Parkinson’s Movement Initiative (PMI) has been funded for a fifth year by the Parkinson’s Foundation. PMI will offer weekly in-person classes at ADF’s SHS Studios that will be livestreamed for those that cannot attend in person due to physical, transportation, or economic barriers. This program is cost-free for individuals living with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers. Dancing With, ADF’s cross-sector collaboration with Murielle Elizeon, Tommy Noonan, and Dr. Jeff Hoder, was funded for a third year. Dancing With will offer weekly in-person classes at ADF’s SHS Studios while performing a deep outreach mapping period resulting in 1-2 workshops in Alamance County. This program is free and open to the public.

ADF Project Dance is resuming with support from SHS Foundation, Duke Energy Foundation, and Durham Merchants Association Charitable Foundation. The goal this year is to collaborate with community organizations to bring cost-free dance classes to youth in neighborhoods where they live.

American Dance Festival is proud to offer Parkinson’s Movement Initiative classes in partnership with NC Dance for Parkinson’s and Poe Wellness Solutions and supported by a community grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation. Through this support, all classes offered through the Parkinson’s Movement Initiative are free for people living with PD and their caregivers.

Additional support is provided by individual donors. Dancing With is funded in part by ADF with a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.

Culture Mill’s work is made possible in part with a grant from the Kenan Charitable Trust. Additional support is provided by RTI International.

ADF Project Dance is made possible with support from the SHS Foundation, Duke Energy Foundation, and Durham Merchants Association Charitable Foundation.

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“We are pleased to be able to provide these community grants and to expand programs and resources throughout the Parkinson’s community,” said John L. Lehr, Parkinson’s Foundation president and chief executive officer. “Every one of these grant recipients shares our commitment to making life better for people with Parkinson’s disease.”

The Parkinson’s Foundation awarded more than $2.2 million in community grants, ranging from a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $25,000 per grant application. This year’s grant cycle focused on three areas, including programs that provide services for diverse and underserved populations, initiatives that reach the newly diagnosed, and programs that address mental health and Parkinson’s. Of the $2.2 million being granted, $1.6 million will help fund essential programs that focus on diverse and underserved Parkinson’s communities.

“ADF could not be more grateful to the Parkinson’s Foundation for its continued support of the Parkinson’s Movement Initiative,” said Jodee Nimerichter, ADF Executive Director. “Since our program’s founding in collaboration with NC Dance for Parkinson’s and Poe Wellness Solutions in 2017, PMI has served over 300 unique individuals and has fostered a meaningful community among participants. Expanding our reach in 2021-2022, PMI will live stream two of our four weekly in-person classes at ADF’s Samuel H. Scripps Studios to continue to reach individuals remotely, relieving transportation barriers to this cost-free program.”

Programs funded by the Parkinson’s Foundation community grants also include wellness, dance, music therapy, and educational programs that help people with Parkinson’s live better with the disease. These programs will benefit communities in 40 states across the country.

Since 2011, the Parkinson’s Foundation has funded more than 580 community-based programs that help address unmet needs for people with PD. To see the full list of the 2021 community grant recipients, visit Parkinson.org/CommunityGrants.

About the Parkinson’s Foundation

The Parkinson’s Foundation makes life better for people with Parkinson’s disease by improving care and advancing research toward a cure. In everything we do, we build on the energy, experience and passion of our global Parkinson’s community. Since 1957, the Parkinson’s Foundation has invested more than $368 million in Parkinson’s research and clinical care. Connect with at Parkinson.org, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or call (800) 4PD-INFO (473-4636).

About Parkinson’s Disease

Affecting an estimated one million Americans and 10 million worldwide, Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s and is the 14th-leading cause of death in the United States. It is associated with a progressive loss of motor control (e.g., shaking or tremor at rest and lack of facial expression), as well as non-motor symptoms (e.g., depression and anxiety). There is no cure for Parkinson’s and 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States alone.

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“After a difficult year and a half, we are thrilled to bring the community together again at our first-ever outdoor festival for eight performances by some of the finest dance companies dazzling audiences today,” said Jodee Nimerichter, executive director of ADF. “And we couldn’t ask for a better partner than the North Carolina Museum of Art.”

In reimagining a dance festival in a post-COVID-19 world, ADF looked to bring performances outside so audiences could spread out in fresh air. The award-winning Museum Park Theater of the state’s art museum, which has hosted orchestras, puppet shows, movies, and bluegrass, pop, and rock acts for more than 20 years, was the perfect local venue. While smaller dance events, including ADF performances, have been hosted inside the museum galleries and in the Museum Park, a festival of this scale has not taken place at the NCMA before. Presale tickets for ADF and NCMA members go on sale Wednesday, August 4; nonmember and general public tickets go on sale Thursday, August 5. Performances last approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. “We are honored to host American Dance Festival’s annual season through this exciting activation of the Museum Park Theater,” said Valerie Hillings, NCMA director. “We’re bringing together art, nature, and people through dance.”

See the full schedule and details below:

Thursday, September 9, 7:30 pm
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham is a Black-led contemporary dance company whose work is informed by and made in conjunction with artists across a range of disciplines and entwines a sensual and provocative vocabulary with a strong emphasis on music, text, video, and visual art. The company will present Big Rings, an A.I.M commissioned dynamic, team-based group work choreographed by company member Keerati Jinakunwiphat. The premiere of Nina Simone Suite (working title) is a new ADF commissioned ensemble work composed of a series of solos and duets set to some of Nina Simone’s most intimate songs. Drive is a high energy, propulsive work created in 2017 for eight dancers, set to thumping club beats.

Friday, September 10 and Saturday, September 11, 7:30 pm
Pilobolus

Pilobolus, the remarkable company that secured an iconic place in American culture in the early 1970s, is still wowing audiences with its irresistible mix of wit, sensuality, and stunning physical acumen. The company performs Megawatt (2004), made in the last decade of founder and choreographer Jonathan Wolken’s life. This revival of the work, made possible in part by ADF, is updated to expand its unfettered exuberance and frenetic expression of life-affirming creative drives and resistance to stagnation by casting dancers in roles that gently subvert stereotypical gender-associated movement vocabulary. Shizen (1978) means nature, and this dance explores coupling as a biomorphic reflection of the natural world. The shakuhachi music was composed by renowned flutist Riley Lee. Walklyndon (1971), one of Pilobolus’s very first works, is a silent dance owing much of its physical humor to slapstick and vaudeville. In the solo from The Empty Suitor (1980), a man flummoxed by seduction comically attempts to regain his footing in life. Nothing seems to go right for the hapless, hopeful beau as he tries to win the affections of a calculating femme fatale.

Sunday, September 12, 3:30pm and 7:30pm
State of Darkness

Originally commissioned by ADF in 1988, Molissa Fenley’s State of Darkness challenges Stravinsky’s cacophonous Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) with an intense 35-minute solo performance of relentless fervency, technical precision, and fearless abandon. Fenley reimagined the commanding score as the sonic landscape for a solo journey rather than the usual ensemble interpretations. Annique Roberts of Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE performs the solo at 3:30 pm and Michael Trusnovec of the Paul Taylor Dance Company performs at 7:30 pm. Each program is followed by a Q and A with Molissa Fenley and the artist.

Tuesday, September 14, 7:30 pm
Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group

Brooklyn-based dance company Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group’s works display rigor, structure, and craft in a postmodern dance vernacular. The company presents CITIZEN (excerpt), a series of solos that asks: What does it mean to belong and what does it mean to NOT want to belong? INTRODUCTION (a solo performed by Reggie Wilson) is a contemporary experimental performance theater work in which Wilson shares a very personal account about his experience of the Spiritual Baptist religion in Trinidad and Tobago. The dance the duet is a seemingly more traditional contemporary work where Wilson weaves an interesting story while playing with and investigating more deeply the idea of duets.

Wednesday, September 15, 7:30 pm
BODYTRAFFIC (pictured)

Internationally acclaimed for its “wonderfully precise dancers” (New York Times), BODYTRAFFIC returns to ADF with a program highlighting the artistry of three of today’s most engaging contemporary dance choreographers. On tap is the world premiere of a duet by Brian Brooks, created during his recent residency, that is certain to reveal his characteristic “kinetic thrill and visual power” (Washington Post). Also featured is Matthew Neenan’s A Million Voices, a piece set to the nostalgic songs of the great Peggy Lee that explores eternal notions about life, love, and war. Rounding out the program is Micaela Taylor’s engaging SNAP, a piece capturing her take on the Los Angeles experience that urges us to “snap out of” the social pressure to conform.

Thursday, September 16, 7:30 pm
Paul Taylor Dance Company

The Paul Taylor Dance Company closes out ADF’s season at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Founded in 1954 the company remains one of the most famous and dynamic modern dance ensembles of our time. The program includes A Field of Grass (1993), with songs sung by Harry Nilsson, a dance evoking America in the 1960s where a central character experiences love, drugs, rebellion, and hope through his counterculture community. Duet (1964), last performed by the Taylor Company in 1992 and made after Taylor’s lyrical 1962 masterpiece Aureole, is a testament to his craft with simplicity, beauty, purity, and gentleness. Esplanade (1975), the definitive Paul Taylor work, is at once playful, somber, romantic, and explosive—a pillar of modern dance that instantly affirms Paul Taylor as one of history’s greatest choreographers.

American Dance Festival Sponsors ADF’s Together We Dance outdoor festival is made possible with support from SHS Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, North Carolina Arts Council, City of Durham, North Carolina Museum of Art, Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Durham Arts Council, Fox Family Foundation, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold/Arnhold Foundation, and Duke Health.

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham Nina Simone Suite (working title) by Kyle Abraham is commissioned by ADF with support from Doris Duke/ SHS Foundations Award for New Works.

Pilobolus The restaging of Megawatt by Pilobolus is supported by SHS Foundation and in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BODYTRAFFIC New Work by Brian Brooks is commissioned by ADF with support from Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works and in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The presentation of SNAP by Micaela Taylor is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Molissa Fenley

The presentation of State of Darkness by Molissa Fenley is supported in part by Ann and Lex Alexander. NCMA Presenting Sponsor: First Citizens Bank

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