September 15-16 the Midwest Trust Center will celebrate ten years of New Dance Partners by presenting four world premiere pieces featuring four local dance companies. The evening will include modern and contemporary dance from national and international choreographers under the artistic advisement of Michael Uthoff. Stacie McDaniel, Executive Director of the Midwest Trust Center, is honored to present the tenth anniversary edition. “As an artist and curator of performances, it is a special thing to celebrate the success of this concert. Together with these talented choreographers and dance companies, we’ve created almost 40 new works! It’s an honor to encourage these collaborations and watch them continue to grow each season.”
This year’s companies and choreographers include:
The Kansas City Ballet with Gina Patterson
A 2021 Bogliasco Fellow, Gina Patterson has won such honors as the Choo San Goh Award, a nomination for an Isadora Duncan Award, the Hubbard Street 2 National Choreographic Competition, New Choreographers on Pointe, the National Choreographic Initiative and a commission by The Cowles Center / SOLO Commissioning Program, funded by the McKnight Foundation. Many of her works for companies have been generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Kansas City Ballet is a 30-member professional ballet company under the leadership of Artistic Director Devon Carney and Executive Director Jeffrey J. Bentley. The company’s mission is to establish Kansas City Ballet as an indispensable asset in its community through exceptional performances, excellence in dance training and quality community education programs for all ages. This marks Kansas City Ballet’s eighth year with New Dance Partners.
Owen/Cox Dance Group with Norbert de la Cruz III
Born in the Philippines and raised in Los Angeles, Norbert De La Cruz III received a BFA in Dance from the Juilliard School and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. He is a New York City- and LA-based freelance artist. De La Cruz was a Princess Grace Foundation-USA award recipient in choreography, Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreography Lab, Joffrey Academy of Dance’s Winning Works and a two-time recipient of the NYC Ballet’s NY Choreographic Institute. He was a former faculty member at Juilliard and a guest visiting artist at SUNY Purchase and Barnard Columbia University. His honorable mentions include the Asian Arts Alliance, McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival Award, Youth American Grand Prix’s best choreographer award and “Dance Magazine’s Top 25 to Watch.”
Owen/Cox Dance Group’s mission is to create new music and dance collaborations, present high-quality contemporary dance performances with live music, and engage as wide an audience as possible through affordable live performance, education and outreach programs. Founders Jennifer Owen and Brad Cox bring together talented artists representing a variety of genres to perform contemporary dance with live music. This will be Owen/Cox’s tenth year with New Dance Partners.
Störling Dance Theater with Kyra Jean Green
Kyra Jean Green, a Canadian American artist, was born in France, raised in Florida and now lives in Montreal, Canada. She obtained her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School in 2006. In 2007, she won the Hubbard Street II choreographic competition, and the Kennedy Center commissioned her to present an evening of her work. Green has presented work at The Center for Performance and Research (Brooklyn, New York), CHOP SHOP (Bellevue, Washington), F.A.T. (Toronto), Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival (Guelph, Canada), Dance Conference U.S.A. (Miami), Quinzena de Dança de Almada (Almada, Portugal), Offset Dance Fest (Brooklyn) and CICC (Copenhagen). In 2019, Green created new works in Germany for Choreolab, made in Ulm and Seattle, for Whim W’him’s Choreographic Shindig. Later that year, she presented two choreographic works from her company at Prisma Dance Festival in Panama.
Störling Dance Theater is the artistic vision of Mona Störling-Enna who moved to Kansas City in 1995 to launch the company. With beauty and story as her skillset, Mona set out to enrich the community with stories and visions that would inspire others with concepts of relationships, community and hope. 2022 will be Störling’s seventh year with New Dance Partners.
Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company with Omar Román De Jesús
Omar Román De Jesús (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) is a Queer Puertorriqueño choreographer and director of New York City-based dance company, Boca Tuya. He is a 2023 inaugural Baryshnikov Arts Center Fellow at Kaatsbaan, a 2022 Princess Grace Award Winner in Choreography, a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography and a 2020 Recipient of The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship (Jacob’s Pillow). He has been commissioned to create work on more than 20 companies and pre-professional schools, including The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico, Ballet Collective, Limón 2 among others.
The Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company has been hailed as one of the most exciting, captivating dance troupes in the Midwest. Works by internationally acclaimed choreographers are presented each year. New works expressing important social issues are a hallmark of the company in performances that are thought-provoking and speak to the human spirit. This will be their tenth year participating in New Dance Partners.
To learn more, visit jccc.edu/MidwestTrustCenter. Purchase tickets here.
