"A breath of fresh air! The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet has 12 engaging and very good dancers and two ambitious and smart directors who know their choreographers. One looks forward to a return visit." Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times

The young and vibrant Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) company comes to Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts Friday, May 7 at 8:00 p.m. There will be a post-show Art to Heart Q & A with the company following the performance. This presentation is part of the Arts & Minds season at Fairfield University.

The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet company has only just begun its second decade (it was founded by Bebe Schweppe in 1996) and already it has received acclaim nationally as well as internationally. The company was founded on the idea of acquiring repertoire and inviting top choreographers in the field to create works for the company.

This performance features Twyla Tharp's nine-part suite "Sue's Leg," which is the final component of Tharp's '30s music trilogy. It remains the best known of her three tributes to a group of recorded music artists, which the choreographer has affectionately called the "old guys." This piece was first recorded in the 1976 broadcast of "Dance in America" on PBS. "Sue's Leg" is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Jean-Philippe Malaty, executive director of the company, has been instrumental in building ASFB from the ground up and he is joined in the vision of seeing dance as a celebration of the human spirit by Tom Mossbrucker, artistic director. Their early experiences as dancers solidified a kinesthetic knowledge of the power dance has to persistently challenge, enliven and educate both audiences and dancers.

Malaty, a native of the Basque region of France who trained in Europe and Mossbrucker, a native of Tacoma, Wash. whose training was in New York City at the School of American Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet School, have taken Schweppe's founding concept and infused it with an individual and collective personality that has served to expand the company into one that has been embraced locally, nationally and internationally.

ASFB has been seen on such stellar stages as The Joyce Theater in New York and the famed Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival; it has captured audiences from The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to New York City Center's "Fall for Dance Festival" and has made a mark in foreign venues including Canada, France, Italy and Guatemala.

Tickets are $45, $40, $35 and are available at fairfield.edu/quick or by contacting the Quick Center Box Office at (203) 254-4010 for more information. The toll free number is 1-877-ARTS-396. Special offers and discounts are available through the Quick Center's e-mail list. Join, by contacting boxoffice@quickcenter.com . And become a fan of the Quick Center for the Arts on Facebook! Keep up-to-date with the latest performance news, plus special offers and discounts! Find the Quick Center at www.facebook.com/FairfieldQuickCenter.

Posted On: 04-06-2010 10:04 AM

Volume: 42 Number: 261