Premiere: June 2011
Music: Toru Takemitsu, And then I knew 'twas Wind
For 2 dancers: 1 male, 1 female
Musicians: The Monadnock Music Ensemble                                                                                                          Visual Art: Betsy Weis
Dancers: Josh Palmer, Ramona Kelley

The dancers appear like mythical characters, emerging from a  sensuous world of nature and memory, and allowing us to recreate them in our minds for a moment before returning our gaze to the bodies before us.  Even after the music draws silent, the mind, still inhabiting the world of the piece, cannot help but continue the movement of the choreography and reflect with nostalgia on a world that may never have existed.

 

 

 

 

 

Premiere: June 2011
Music: Guillermo Brown, Games
For 6 dancers: 3 male, 3 female
Video: Evelyn Carrigan
Dancers: Ramona Kelley, Selina Chau, Sarah Bek, Joshua Palmer, Darion Smith, Patrick John O'Neill

By coaching dancers on the integrity of the movement and music, rather than mimicking hip-hop choreography, Lavagnino achieves an intersection between contemporary urban life and classical ballet that has yet to be seen elsewhere.

 

 

Premiere: 2010
Music: Scott Killian
For 7 dancers: 3 male, 4 female
Video: Evelyn Carrigan
Dancers: Ramona Kelley, Julia Bordeaux-Mayo, Selina Chau, Sarah Bek, Joshua Palmer, Justin Flores, Patrick John O'Neill

An interesting connection between Killian's score and Lavagnino's choreography is that both drew inspiration for this piece from late 19th and early 20th century French artists.  In the case of Killian, it was the minimalist Erik Satie, for Lavagnino,  it was Edgar Degas.  While paintings and sculptures are immobile, however, Lavagnino's dancers begin to transform and disfigure, resurrect and remold.  Simultaneously, characters emerge who are constantly swept by waves of contortion, distorting the vertical aesthetic of classical dance and creating a world where emotion and yearning are palpable.

 

 

Premiere: June 2009
Music: Original score by Jane Chung
For 4 dancers: 2 male, 2 female
Video: Violinist, Jane Chung
Dancers, Jackie McConnell, Josh Green, Ramona Kelley

Lavagnino creates an angular, taut movement vocabulary to explore the uncompromising aspects of ourselves that extend to our most personal relationships.  Jane Chung's plaintive and dissonant score for a solo violin builds on the dancers' unnerving sense of detachment.  The male/female duets display a cool, internally driven performance quality that shows detachment and an impasse in communication.