Press

"'Carmina Burana,' Orff's 1934 setting of bawdy medieval poetry, is a musical comic book, couched in bright hues and exclamation points, with a text made for dialogue bubbles. Leichter's choreography was in that spirit. Kinetic and sometimes almost mechanistic, but just as often the picture of fluid physicality, it was about movement on its own terms rather than as an interpretation of the text."

Allan Kozinn, New York Times
>full article (PDF)

“Leichter borrows the confrontational stance of MTV, as he flirts with street dance and hip-hop bravado, but he subverts them all with questions about racial and cultural stereotypes.”
- Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice
>full article (PDF)

"Leichter hears the beat of the moment,and renders it into hot but human modern dance."
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

“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
>full article (PDF)

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Slow and sensual, insistent and intertwined, athletic and aware, Leichter's dance pieces are filled with provocative pairings. Whether exploring race and gender, the relationship between dancers, or between street and traditional dance styles, the movement evokes a cultivated culture clash.

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Nicholas Leichter Biography

Nicholas Leichter (Artistic Director) received a BA in Dance from Connecticut College where he studied with Jacylnn Villamil and Martha Myers. He was a member of Ralph Lemon Company from 1993-1995, has performed with the companies of Jennifer Muller, Ronald K. Brown, and Gus Solomons jr, and regularly appears in the work of Clare Byrne. He has taught throughout the United States, at festivals in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, and Canada, and he has been on faculty at Tisch School of the Arts and the American Dance Festival. Recent commissions include the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Aaron Davis Hall, Celebrate Brooklyn, Central Park SummerStage, In the Company of Men, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, and others.

Leichter’s work and company have received support from TIAA-CREF, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, New York Foundation for the Arts (BUILD Grants and Choreography Fellowship), Jerome Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, Pentacle’s Help Desk, Dance/USA and the NEA as part of the National College Choreographic Initiative, The 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts. Leichter has been artist-in-residence/guest artist at many institutions including Sarah Lawrence College, University of Iowa, University of Richmond, George Washington University, University of Houston, Adage School for the Performing Arts in Modesto, Velocity Dance Center in Seattle, Muhlenberg College, and Idaho State University.

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Repertory

The Rite of Spring (33 minutes)

Coming soon.

Sweetwash (30 minutes)

Marking Nicholas Leichter's first collaboration with African American composer, writer, and performer Eisa Davis, Sweetwash honors the work and ideas of African American civil rights activists and literary figures. Sweetwash has been commissioned, in part, by The Duncan Theater at Palm Beach Community College, was performed in a work-in-progress presentation at The Whitney at Altria and previewed at Dance New Amsterdam (NYC) June 30 and July 1, 2006.

Carmina Burana (full-evening opera, 65 min. choreography)

Set to medieval poetry, Nicholas Leichter's choreography forges a fresh interpretation of composer Carl Orff’s exploration into hedonistic pagan ritual. Distancing Carmina Burana from the Third Reich’s appropriation of the work during the second World War, Leichter’s signature choreographic style, fusing a modern dance vernacular with urban street dance, transforms this magnetic, crowd-pleasing work, often over-used in our popular culture, into a full-out celebration of contemporary cultural diversity.

The work may be presented with either the recorded score, with your local chorus and orchestra, or excerpted in a repertory evening that would include work set to scores by both contemporary composers and/or popular music.

Scrutiny (15 minutes), Never End (28 minutes), Skin Diving (20 minutes), Free the Angels (16 minutes), Undertow (10 minutes), Other mixed repertory

Coming soon.

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