Press

"A festive disply by terrifcally vibrant dancers, attuned to all the African, Indian, Latino, and Middle Eastern flavors that Leichter stirs into his brew... fluent-bodied, get-down dancing a dynamic richness and sensuous elegane that just about stops by heart.."

Deborah Jowitt,The Village Voice
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"Killa is a dance phenomenon... a celebration of the virtuosity and ingenuity of club dancing.."

Quinn Batson,offoffoff.com
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"Leichter overlays funky, elbow-flapping, crotch-grabbing moves- an infectious mix of hip hop, West African, and disco-drag-- with references to money, politics, and fashion.."

Gus Solomons Jr.,Gay City News
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“Nicholas Leichter’s choreography is joyfully infectious; he punctuates smooth, pulsing phrases with hops and gestures. His musical choices vary from pop and R&B to experimental commissioned pieces for strings. He sometimes floats the movement atop the music, like a boat riding the sea’s swells. Or he leads a phrase across a rhythm’s path, creating a curious tension––as simple as stillness set against music.”

Susan Yung, Dance Magazine
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Nicholas Leichter creates cultural narratives where movement tells the story. Leichter’s hybrid approach draws from many sources, including traditional, contemporary, folk, and popular dance, as well as musical theater and musical categories. Leichter and company mix and mash up styles and substance into rhythmic displays of bodies, fashion, and lights in motion. Whether dancing to Stevie Wonder or Stravinsky, these vibrant dances celebrate human equality.

To enhance and inform the performance experience and deepen the level of engagement for our audiences, the company also offers master classes, workshops, residencies, lecture demonstrations, panel discussions, talkbacks, open rehearsals, and online forums. These activities incorporate an extensive repertory of contemporary dance techniques, improvisation, and information about the creative process, as well as administrative, technology, and social media expertise.

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Nicholas Leichter Biography

Nicholas Leichter Dance has performed in over 50 cities in 17 states and 12 countries at venues including The Joyce Theater; the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House with the Brooklyn Philharmonic; The John C. Wright Theater at CSU Fresno; The Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach Community College, FL; The Jefferson Center in Roanoke, VA; Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston; Zoellner Arts Center in Bethlehem, PA; Diana Wortham Theater in Asheville, NC; Kaohsiung Jazz Dance Congress in Taiwan; Freedance in Ukraine; Time to Dance in Riga, Latvia; and the Dialogue de Corps Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Leichter and company have received support from The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Performance Network, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Albert and Esther Cory Foundation, The 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, the American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program, New York State Council on the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) through the National Dance Project (NDP) with generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Repertory

Twenty

Twenty will be an evening-length dance performance by Choreographer Nicholas Leichter and Wunderkind Dancer Choreographer Bryan Strimpel. Through movement and music, Twenty addresses issues of age, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, neurology, and muscle memory. It explores the dynamics of the working relationship between the two artists. It reveals how Mr. Leichter, who is African American and almost 40, and Mr. Strimpel, who is white and just turned 22, can be polar opposites in every way - but are in complete sync as dancers and artists. Twenty takes a look at the racial and generational “divide” separating these two extraordinary dancers, while examining what unites all dancers – regardless of their race or age. It is an homage to the incredible students and young dancers of the world.” In Twenty, Leichter welcomes the next wave of young artists as the ambassadors of the performing arts. Musically, the work will utilize a mix-tape of some of the most soulful, experimental, and popular music of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: from the late great Laura Nyro, Patti Labelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash, to the rarely heard collaboration between Daryl Hall and Robert Fripp, the classic club beats of Lil Louis and The World to the smooth and sexy rap of Hip Hops hottest current producer, Tricky Stewart, aka, The Dream. Twenty will be a dance and music feast - rich, lush, powerful, sexy, brave, vulnerable, human, and alive!

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