Gotham Arts Exchange Presents 2nd Annual FOCUS DANCE, Now thru 1/13

ROSIE HERERRA DANCE THEATER Rosie Herrera is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts with a BFA in Dance Performance. She has danced with Freddick Bratcher and Co, Animate Objects Physical Theater, Bill Doolin and Camposition Hybrid Theater Project. As a rehearsal director, co-choreographer and performer Rosie was in residency at the Chat Noir Cabaret at Dream Night Club in South Beach with the interdisciplinary performance ensemble CircX. Rosie is a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano and performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble as well as choreographs and stages operas independently throughout Miami. Her choreography has been presented by the Florida Dance Festival, Dot Fifty One Gallery, The Emerging Choreography Series at Excelo Dance Space and internationally as part of the Digital World Institute. She has been commissioned by New World School of the Arts, The Good for Something Dancers, The Miami Light Project in association with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts as part of the 2009 and 2010 Here and Now Festivals and the American Dance Festival in 2010 and 2011. Rosie is a 2010 MANCC residency recipient and was recently seen in Liony Garcia's Clandestine and Michael McKeever's South Beach Babylon. www.rosieherrera.com

Doug Varone AND DANCERS marks its 25th anniversary during the 2012 season. Since its founding in 1986, The company has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess. On The Concert stage, in opera, theatre, film and fashion, Varone's kinetically thrilling dances make essential connections and mine the complexity of the human spirit. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone's work literally takes your breath away. As the New York Times says, "Varone's superb dancers are always worth seeing!" At home in New York City, Doug Varone and Dancers is the resident company at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. On tour, The company has performed in more than 100 cities across the US and in Canada, Europe, Asia and South America, including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto's Harbourfront, Moscow's Stanislavsky Theater, the Venice Biennale and the Tokyo, Bates, Jacob's Pillow and American Dance Festivals. In opera and theatre, The company regularly collaborates on the many Varone-directed and -choreographed productions produced around the country. www.dougvaroneanddancers.org

EIKO & KOMA recently premiered Fragile, a four-hour event with Kronos Quartet. Other noted stage collaborations include Hunger (2008, with Cambodian painters-turned-performers Peace and Charian), Mourning (2007, with pianist Margaret Leng Tan), Cambodian Stories (2006, with the Reyum Painting Collective), Be With (2001, with Anna Halprin and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud), When Nights Were Dark (2000, with Joseph Jennings and a Praise Choir), the proscenium version of River (1997, also with Kronos Quartet), and Land (1991, with Robert Mirabal). They have created visual art installations in New York, Chicago and Minneapolis and have presented site works as free-admission events at dozens of locations for over 35,000 audience members. River takes place in a body of moving water. The Caravan Project, a "museum by delivery" installation, is performed in a specially modified trailer. Offering, a ritual in communal mourning, premiered in Battery Park near Ground Zero in 2002. Tree Song was presented in the St. Mark's Church graveyard in 2003. Water, another collaboration with Robert Mirabal, opened the 2011 Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival in the Hearst Plaza reflecting pool. www.eikoandkoma.org

JOHN JASPERSE presents live performances of contemporary dance and engages in a broad range of residency activities in the United States and abroad. Featuring the choreography of John Jasperse, The company continues to build a growing presence on the international contemporary dance scene. Through the development of new works and their presentation John Jasperse projects aims to challenge and engage its audiences in rich and innovative aesthetic and intellectual experiences, thereby expanding the form of contemporary concert dance and its relevance to the greater culture. www.johnjasperse.org

FOCUS 2013: FOCUS DANCE
The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), NYC
January 8 - 13, 2013
Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday at 7:30pm; Thursday - Saturday at 8pm;
Saturday and Sunday at 2pm
Tickets are $10-$39
JoyceCharge: 212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.focusdance.us

GOTHAM ARTS EXCHANGE, INC. is a non-profit arts organization set-up to provide administrative, management, booking, fundraising, insurance, and fiscal sponsorship services to the artists that make up the roster of Zia Artists. The idea behind Gotham Arts Exchange is to "pool" the resources of many companies together to be able to afford the many aspects of running a non-profit corporation that is vital to the infrastructure of a dance company. By doing this, each dance company that is not an incorporated non-profit becomes a sponsored project of the organization. Gotham Arts Exchange began producing at The Joyce Theater in 2006, presenting Battleworks and Paradigm, followed by Keigwin+Company and Battleworks (2008), Nicholas Leichter and Keigwin+Company (2009), Gotham Dance Festival (2010, 2011, 2012), and Camille A. Brown & Dancers (2012). The most recent venture is FOCUS (2012, 2013), a new initiative that promotes American dance during APAP.

The Joyce Theater FOUNDATION, INC., a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since 1982. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New York home for more than 290 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through pre-engagement Dance Talks and post-performance Humanities discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

Photo courtesy Stephen Petronio Company/Sarah Silver.