THE TETRALOGY OF ALONE

Julia Ritter, artistic director of Julia Ritter Performance Group will be presenting an evening of new dance theater titled “The Tetralogy of Alone”. Based on the ancient Greek art form of a tetralogy, which includes four works with a related theme, the evening will explore the concept of “alone” in collaboration with New York based musicians Phil Kline, Dan Martin, Bradford Reed (formerly of the Blue Man Group), all of whose original music will be featured in the program. Julia Ritter Performance Group will feature nine performers in the evening, all of who are highly skilled dancers in addition to boasting talents as vocalists and actors. Julia Ritter conceptualizes work in which movement language works in tandem with other elements such as text, song, video and physical theater techniques. Through the integration of these elements, Julia Ritter has created a repertory that is socially conscious and speaks to current issues and concerns. The company is known for combining edgy content, a unique movement vocabulary, and strong vocal work with a refined, polished design aesthetic to create beguiling and beautiful performance works. The first work on the program will be a solo titled “Sentinel”, created in collaboration with composer Dan Martin. This work was praised by Robert Johnson of the Star Ledger Newspaper as a “delicious solo…” when it was performed by Julia Ritter in April 2000. Within the solo, a lone figure traverses the landscape, and undergoes a ritual of transformation from hypersensitivity to surrender. There will be a new “Sextet” for men and women that explores archetypes and images of solitude, while investigating our needs to be heard and recognized. Inspired by the quote by Peter Brook that reads, “A large part of our excessive, unnecessary manifestations come from a terror that if we are not somehow signaling all the time that we exist, we will in fact no longer be there”, this new work will feature a live score developed collaboratively between the dancers and composer Phil Kline. Julia Ritter will perform a new solo titled “The Truth Shall Make You Odd”, in which a woman faces the freakishness of her existence. Compelling and comical text will be integrated with dance and set to an original score by Bradford Reed. The evening will end with “Blue Honey Sky, Last Spring”, which abstractly displays the ephemeral nature of our time spent in one another’s presence. This piece was particularly inspired by the idea of “significant strangers” (those special people one meets while traveling and whom one mostly likely will never see again) The work is wonderfully accompanied by the music of Phil Kline.