Supporting souls and soles at The Music Hall!
Have you noticed that everyone is talking about dance these days? Have you seen 12-year-old Amie Donald’s eerie dance as M3GAN the robot? What about Jenna Ortega’s self-choreographed performance in Wednesday? Or the Boston Dynamics line-up completing a series of intricate moves in perfect unison? Amazing, all of them. Now that your interest has been piqued by these incredible videos, The Music Hall invites you to join us for a live dance performance.
Last year we brought the Paul Taylor Dance Company to Portsmouth. Now we’ve just announced a visit by Camille A. Brown & Dancers, who will perform at the Historic Theater on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Their visit, which will also include a workshop, has been arranged in partnership with the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire as part of Portsmouth’s commemoration of Juneteenth.
We are particularly thrilled to host Camille A. Brown & Dancers in large part due to the success of the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s visit. That September 2022 event ended a long drought for The Music Hall; it had been more than 5 years since the last time we’d hosted a performance by a professional dance company and almost 20 years since Paul Taylor Dance had been to Portsmouth.
The New York Times described the Paul Taylor Dance Company as “One of the most exciting, innovative, and delightful dance companies in the entire world,” so we knew we’d see an incredible performance. But what we didn’t anticipate was the audience. Hundreds of fans attended, and the energy from the crowd was electric, more akin to a rock show than what you might expect at a modern dance performance. The program was so fantastic that patrons offered not one but FIVE curtain calls.
In addition to their performance for the public, a member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company made time to lead an intensive workshop for 16 students studying dance at the University of New Hampshire. Gay Nardone, Director of Dance at UNH, reports that her students are still talking about the experience. We are so grateful to Service Credit Union, our Presenting Sponsor of the event, for making this event possible.
Music Hall patrons and UNH students weren’t the only people happy about the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s visit. The Company were so impressed with our gorgeous facility and felt so welcomed and appreciated by our audiences, that they’ve already offered to book The Music Hall into their next tour. We aim to provide the same warm welcome for Camille A. Brown & Dancers this June, and hope you will be in the audience to help us create a most memorable shared experience.
Special thanks to:
