"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century”- The New York Times
For information about upcoming performances of FOUR QUARTETS please see our events page or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest on our tour schedule.
Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot’s mysterious and beautiful masterpiece, is a meditation on time and timelessness and is now prized as one of the 20th century’s most stunning literary achievements. Seventy-five years after its publication, Eliot’s poetry cycle has inspired three astonishing contemporary artists to join forces in a ravishing union of dance, music, painting, and poetry.
A Bard Fisher Center Production
Premiere: Bard SummerScape
July 2018
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Text by T. S. Eliot
Scenic and Lighting Design by Clifton Taylor
Costume Design by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Sound Design by Jean-Baptiste Barriére
Images by Brice Marden
Music by Kaija Saariaho; performed by The Knights Ensemble
Dancers:
Kara Chan
Jason Collins
Dylan Crossman
Christine Flores
Zachary Gonder
Lindsey Jones
Victor Lozano
Maile Okamura
Melissa Toogood
with Kathleen Chalfant
Reviews:
“Pam Tanowitz has created dance theater of the highest caliber. ”- The New York Times
“…Pam Tanowitz’s own profound FOUR QUARTETS moves not only in time but as time. Traversing rhythmic and dynamic extremes – skittering en masse one moment and clearing the stage for a lonely adagio that radiates limbs the next – the dancers seemed to incarnate time. “– Financial Times
“Rarely do dance, music, poetry and image come together as sublimely as they have in FOUR QUARTETS” – The Berkshire Eagle
Four Quartets is co-commissioned by the Bard Fisher Center, where it received its world premiere in Bard SummerScape 2018, the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Barbican, London, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
GAGOSIAN is the lead corporate sponsor of Four Quartets. Major support provided by Rebecca Gold. Additional commissioning funds were provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, the T. S. Eliot Foundation, King’s Fountain, Virginia and Timothy Millhiser, and Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Creation of the music was supported by the Thendara Foundation and New Music USA.
Photos by Marina Baranova
Premiere: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
March 2018
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Costume Design by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Music by Caroline Shaw (“Blueprint”), performed by Brooklyn Rider
Dancers:
Jason Collins
Patricia Delgado
Victor Lozano
Reviews:
“A beautiful new piece by Tanowitz” -The Washington Post
"Ms. Tanowitz’s ‘Blueprint,’ performed on Wednesday, had its premiere in March at the Kennedy Center. A witty, bright barefoot trio for Jason Collins, Patricia Delgado and Victor Lozano, it abounds with the brisk, darting and bouncing footwork in which Ms. Tanowitz specializes; you can sense how Ms. Shaw’s score stimulates it.” - The New York Times
Blueprint was commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of DEMO by Damian Woetzel.
Photos by Erin Baiano
"A riveting dialogue of movement and music." - The New York Times
Deconstructing classical, formal and traditional movement vocabularies, NEW WORK FOR GOLDBERG VARIATIONS mirrors and converses with Bach’s iconic score in a delightful interplay of rhythm, style and idiosyncrasy, shifting between encoded gestures and virtuosic dancing and demonstrating the rich emotional world lying beneath the poised surface of the Goldberg’s musical architecture.
Premiere: Duke Performances
October 2017
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Lighting/Visual Design by Davison Scandrett
Costume Design by Reid Bartelme & Harriet Jung
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach (1865 – 1750), Goldberg Variations
Performed live by Simone Dinnerstein
Dancers:
Maggie Cloud
Jason Collins
Christine Flores
Lindsey Jones
Maile Okamura
Melissa Toogood
Netta Yerushalmy
Produced by Aaron Mattocks
Reviews:
“Ms. Tanowitz has long been one of the most formally brilliant choreographers around. ‘New Work’…makes full use of her formal skills.” – The New York Times
“Tanowitz’s choreography devises its own language, idiosyncratic yet entirely consistent. Gestures live on the cusp of familiarity, and the brilliantly differentiated cast is indefatigable in following the movement to its never-ends." – IndyWeek
"The Goldberg audience seemed very sorry to see the show end. We had gone a long way with these dancers—seventy-five minutes—and we could have gone longer." - The New Yorker
New Work for Goldberg Variations was commissioned by Duke Performances / Duke University & Peak Performances / Montclair State University, co-commissioned by Opening Nights Performing Arts / Florida State University & Summer Stages Dance at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston & received creative development support from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University, The Yard at Martha's Vineyard, the NYU Center for Ballet & the Arts & New York City Center. New Work for Goldberg Variations was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation & The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation & support from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. General Operating support for Pam Tanowitz Dance was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Photos by Marina Levitskaya, courtesy of Peak Performances @ Montclair State University
Premiere: Faena Forum
2016
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Original Score by Dan Siegler
Costume Design by Sybilla
Dancers:
Maggie Cloud
Jason Collins
Dylan Crossman
Sarah Haarmann
Victor Lozano
Lindsey Jones
With Students from the Miami City Ballet School
Pam Tanowitz brings traditional forms into a modern day expression, in the “superbly suspenseful”, Sequenzas in Quadrilles, commissioned by the Joyce Theater. With unparalleled vigor and discipline Tanowitz continues her career long investigation of dance as object by throwing a net over material from sources as varied as 19th Century ballet, early modern dance, American jazz and the movement of pedestrians.
Premiere at The Joyce Theater,
September 2016
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Light Design by Davison Scandrett
Costume Design by Reid Bartelme & Harriet Jung
Set Design by Suzanne Bocanegra
Dancers:
Jason Collins
Dylan Crossman
Sarah Haarmann
Lindsey Jones
Victor Lozano
Music: "Sequenzas for Viola, Trombone and Harp" by Luciano Berio, "Stuttered Chants" by David Lang
Performed live by members of The Knights
Support for the commission of Sequenzas in Quadrilles provided by King's Foundation and the Joyce Theater's Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work with additional support provided by The Joyce Foundation with major funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional support for the creation of this work was provided, in part, by New York City Center Choreography Fellowship and Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.
Photos by Christopher Duggan
Premiere: Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires Argentina May 2016
Collaboration with Sho Shigenmatsu
Music: Dan Siegler
Costumes: Jessica Trosman
Lighting: Davison Scandrett
Dancers:
Dylan Crossman
Melissa Toogood
and dancers from Contemporary Dance Workshop of Teatro San Martin
Photos courtesy of Faena Arts Center
Premiere: Joyce Theater, February 2016
Music: Julia Wolfe, FOUR MARYS performed by FLUX Quartet; original score by Dan Siegler
Costumes: Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Dancers:
Jason Collins
Dylan Crossman
Sarah Haarman
Lindsey Jones
Melissa Toogood
Review -
" The choreographer Pam Tanowitz is like an author who uses rigorous grammar to write nonsense verse; she’s orthodox and unorthodox, eccentrically pleasing and wittily obscure. You sense different layers of reality in her choreography, but they’re so interwoven with absurdity and brainy patterning that her pieces look elegantly hermetic, good-humoredly private." - The New York Times
Photos by Ian Douglas
Premiere: Joyce Theater, February 2014
Music: Conlon Nancarrow, String Quartet 1 & 3 performed by FLUX Quartet
Costumes: Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Photos: Christopher Duggan and Ian Douglas
Co-commission - Vail International Dance Festival and NYCC Fall for Dance, 2015
Composer: FLUX Quartet, played with Greg Saunier
Costumes: Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Dancers: Guest from American Ballet Theatre:
Tyler Mahoney
Calvin Royal III
Devon Teuscher
" . . .Ms. Tanowitz’s peculiarly inventive humor (marvelous footwork, as so often with her) maintains a what-will-happen-next quality that keeps everyone on happy tenterhooks." - The New York Times
Photos by Julieta Cervantes
Co-commission - Vail International Dance Festival and NYCC Fall for Dance, 2015
Composer: Brooklyn Rider
Costumes : Reid Bartelme
Dancers:
Guests from New York City Ballet:
Joseph Gordon
Gretchen Smith
Guest from American Ballet Theatre:
Calvin Royal III
Review-
Photos courtesy of Vail International Dance Festival, Erin Baiano
Commission - Guggenheim Works & Process, 2015
Music: David Lang, Caroline Shaw, Ted Hearne, Hannah Lash
FLUX Quartet
Lighting: Davison Scandrett
Costumes: Reid Bartelme
Dancers:
Maggie Cloud
Dylan Crossman
Lindsey Jones
Stuart Singer
Melissa Toogood
"Ms. Tanowitz and her collaborators maintain such a high level of imagination that what is fragmented by design can be experienced as a satisfying, organic whole." - The New York Times
"Tanowitz’s work may seem slippery in its off-centredness .... but it is not cocky. It is pensive. With the tour de forceBroken Story (wherein there is no ecstasy), it is distantly emotional as well." - Financial Times
Photos courtesy of Guggenheim Museum and Christopher Duggan
Premiered at the Joyce Theater NYC in January 2014
Music: John Zorn, Passagen
Performed by Paulina Kim Harris
Photos by Andrea Mohin and Christopher Duggan
Commissioned by New York Live Arts
Music: Dan Siegler, Annie Gosfield played live by FLUX Quartet
Lighting Design by Davison Scandrett
Costume Design by Renée Kurz
Dancers:
Melissa Toogood
Dylan Crossman
Andrew Champlin
Maggie Cloud
Sarah Haarmann
Pierre Guilbault
Photos credit: Ian Douglas