MOVING TOWARDS DISCOVERY

How the Vail Dance Festival established a reputation as a high-altitude creative hotspot for new music and dance

By Joel Solari

There is something about the Vail Valley that sparks the imagination — a place where the surrounding mountains and wilderness beckon us to discover what is possible. There is wonder in what we might discover within nature, and in turn, within ourselves. This sense of discovery is a touchstone of the Vail Dance Festival, a summer gathering of artistic exploration and renewal for dance and music artists across genres and from around the world.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Damian Woetzel, world-class dancers and musicians are invited to this collaboratively rich environment to explore what is possible in their artistic craft and practice. Over the course of two weeks, studios and stages are buzzing with interdisciplinary creativity, all culminating on closing night in a dazzling performance of new works called NOW: Premieres, taking place on Monday, August 7. Invigorating the dance world with new works is an essential part of what drives the Festival forward as a major incubator for the arts. And so, at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level and nestled in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, Vail has earned an international reputation as a place where innovative new works in dance and music are born and new partnerships blossom.

“It’s such an inspiring place to be, especially in the mountains and in this quaint town, walking outdoors from studio to studio,” reflected Justin Peck, New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer who will be making his fourth work for the Festival this summer. “What makes making work here so special is the environment that is created and cultivated for new creativity, new ideas, new collaborations and the interactions that cross over between different genres and styles. That is so much of what dancemaking is all about.”

Beginning with choreographer Christopher Wheeldon as he launched his company Morphoses at the 2007 Festival, dancemakers of various genres at the top of their field have since partnered with Woetzel to step outside their relative comfort zones and experiment in the inspiring locale of the Vail Valley. The Festival has since commissioned over 100 new works, some of which have been presented in prestigious venues around the country including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and New York City Center, while others live on in the repertory of companies like New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

In addition to 10 new works, audiences this summer will enjoy new music compositions featuring some of the most celebrated contemporary composers working today including Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Bernstein Composer-In-Residence Caroline Shaw. Rising composer and producer Shelbie Rassler will serve as Music Director, working alongside a range of extraordinary musicians including resident string quartet Brooklyn Rider. There will be some familiar faces in the studio choreographing new work this year, as well as a handful of exciting dancemakers making their Festival commission debuts: Kyle Abraham, Melissa Toogood, and 2023 Artist-In-Residence Adji Cissoko.

Cissoko, a critically acclaimed dancer of Alonzo King LINES Ballet in San Francisco, has performed here in previous seasons, first in 2018 during a headlining engagement with LINES and then later in 2019 in the world premiere of Alonzo King’s, The Personal Element, a landmark collaboration with dancers from New York City Ballet and LINES, set to a sweeping piano score composed and performed by Jason Moran. The work has gone on to tour internationally with LINES since its debut in Vail. A nascent choreographer in recent years, Cissoko created her first piece for Philadelphia’s BalletX in 2021 and this summer she will be creating a solo work for herself that explores her familial and ancestral heritage.

“The work I am creating will be connected to my griot roots,” says Cissoko. “Griot means storyteller which is something my family has been known for in West Africa for 22 generations. Traditionally the Cissokos play the kora, a West African string instrument, to tell their stories and pass on tradition, but I’m going to do so through my dance. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but I’ve been nervous to start, cross-genre collaboration and partnerships. “I’m an admirer of Ulysses Dove, Trisha Brown, Justin Peck, and Balanchine. I have so many people that I’m inspired by when I am making work, but the practices that I use aren’t necessarily derived from anyone else’s practice.” In fact, his work is wellknown for being exceptionally powerful, driven by the relationships he builds with his collaborators. In a rave review of the solo he choreographed for American Ballet Theatre’s Calvin Royal III, The New York Times stated “how skilled he has become at mingling the ballet vernacular with other forms, from hip-hop to West African movement” and his skill for “finding the person within the dancer and the bodies within a body.” so Vail will be the perfect opportunity to make it happen.” (Read more in “10 Questions for Adji Cissoko” on pages 20-21.)

"It’s just naturally in my DNA in how I approach movement,” says Abraham. “I grew up in social dance and I was a big rave kid but when I started to study dance, I studied all of it. I don’t feel that I need to be holding on to a particular technique or idiom when I make work now. Also, I like to get to know the dancers I’m working with. It’s important to me.” For his first work made for Vail, his cast of dancers will include artists from coast to coast, including dancers from LINES Ballet, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Philadephia Ballet, and independent artists.

Kyle Abraham has been to Vail before, but only briefly. In 2014, within a span of about 24 hours, he arrived at the Festival to perform his work The Serpent and the Smoke with Wendy Whelan as part of Restless Creature at the Vilar Performing Arts Center. He flew out the next day when his busy schedule carried him on to his next project. “I barely got to see the area,” he shared with a light chuckle, “so I’m looking forward to a longer visit this time around.”

Celebrated for his work that embodies Black culture and history, Abraham’s movement vocabulary is inspired by many sources and styles, which makes him well suited for the Festival and its penchant for

Intrepid modern dancer and Australia native Melissa Toogood is an awardwinning New York and Sydney-based performer with an impressive career that spans a multitude of genres and techniques. She was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the last years of Cunningham’s life, and since 2007 has been one of the leading teachers of Cunningham Technique globally. She has also performed in multiple works with tap phenomenon Michelle Dorrance, and has appeared as a guest artist with numerous companies including Kyle Abraham’s, among many others. As a current member of Pam Tanowitz Dance, where she also serves as Rehearsal Director, she has worked closely with the prolific choreographer on staging works around the country.

Toogood first came to Vail in 2015 as a performer and has since danced in numerous works created for the Festival. However, this year will be the first time she will step in front of the studio to lead as choreographer for an entirely new work made specifically for Vail audiences. For the work, Toogood will expand upon a solo that she created during a weeklong residency at Dance Initiative’s Launchpad in Carbondale, Colorado, where she says she balanced the roles of artist and motherhood in an intimate setting.

“I was closed in a small studio for a week with my young son, alone, caring for a small child while trying to work and produce something,” says Toogood. “The space was small, half taken up by blanket forts and puzzles with him climbing on me at times while I was dancing and creating a solo work. Choreographing while preparing snacks, yet also feeling completely cut off from anything else in the world at that moment. Running in place, yet completely present. I want to see if I could expand on this here in Vail, could I add people and we still be alone together?”

With Quartet-In-Residence Brooklyn Rider providing live accompaniment, the work will feature the music of composer David K. Israel with a cast that includes Sara Mearns, Miriam Miller and India Bradley of New York City Ballet dancing along with Toogood.

Reflecting on her experience as a dancer in new works here, Toogood shared: “It has the same kind of energy you brought to basement-made dances with your cousins as kids and then performed for loved ones. This audience feels like family and are that supportive, too, willing to sit in the rain to see what we have to share with them.”

In addition to these three choreographers, a handful of Festival regulars and returning guest artists will also be busy in the studios this summer, including Lil Buck, Tiler Peck, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, Matthew Neenan, Larry Keigwin, and Justin Peck.

On the heels of his successful touring production of Memphis Jookin: The Show, Festival favorite Lil Buck will return to create new work with critically acclaimed bass-baritone singer Davóne Tines, who made his Festival debut last year. Both artists will appear on the stage together, with Lil Buck as the featured solo dancer in his signature Jookin style. And in her fourth choreographic work for the Festival, New York City Ballet principal Tiler Peck will create a new pas de deux for American Ballet Theatre principals Cory Stearns and Devon Teuscher. Also, Caili Quan, who was last year’s Artist-InResidence, will return to create her fourth work for the Festival, featuring new music by Gabriel Kahane and dancers Unity Phelan and Calvin Royal III, who continue their made-in-Vail ballet partnership.

Two works this year will be created as co-commissions with two dance companies that are at the forefront of new choreography in contemporary ballet. In a follow-up to his Festival choreographic debut in 2021, former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre resident choreographer Jamar Roberts will create a new work for BalletX. While Matthew Neenan, co-founder of BalletX and current Choreographer-

In-Residence with Philadelphia Ballet (formerly Pennsylvania Ballet), will create a new work for DanceAspen.

Returning after several years, choreographer Larry Keigwin will create a new work that features 2023 ScholarIn-Residence Spencer Lenain, a recent graduate of CalArts and a social media dance influencer with 1.4M TikTok followers. The cast will also include Philip Duclos, a former Vail Scholar-In-Residence himself in 2021, who is now a dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet, and KJ Takahashi, newly promoted soloist at New York City Ballet. And as previously mentioned, celebrated artists Justin Peck and Caroline Shaw who began collaborating in Vail a few years ago, will come together again to make a work with new choreography by Peck, matched with new music by Shaw.

As these ardent voices of creative ingenuity come together this summer to explore within their craft, Festival audiences are integral participants as the first to experience these new works uniquely inspired by the beauty of Vail and what is made possible only at the Vail Dance Festival. “The fact that the Vail Dance Festival provides this space is something that does not exist in most places,” says Justin Peck. “It’s a rare thing and I know it comes from the fact that new work is a priority here. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it is and that speaks volumes.”