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David Parker & The Bang Group return to Summer Stages Dance for their seventh year in 2007. Parker grew up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and began studying tap and ballet in Boston as a teenager. One of his first pieces, Bang and Suck was presented by Dance Theater Workshop on its Fresh Tracks series in 1992. It went on to win numerous awards and citations including a prize from the Fourth International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in Groningen, Then Netherlands, a special citation from the jury of the Kurt Jooss Award in Germany (which included Pina Bausch), a citation for emerging choreographer at the Nijinsky Awards in Monaco and numerous ten-best-of-the-year lists. In 1995 Parker founded The Bang Group, a rhythm-based theatrical dance troupe serving Parker’s intelligent fascination with the percussive possibilities of the dancing body. The work is wide-rangingly anarchic and subversive but based on an abiding love of formalism.
David Parker and The Bang Group have been presented in New York City by Dance Theater Workshop in five full-evening productions including a back-by-popular-demand engagement of Nut/Cracked, Parker's 21st century-neo-vaudeville version of The Nutcracker in 2004. Originally co-commissioned by DTW and the Carlo Felice Opera House in Genoa, Italy and received its world premiere in Genoa in November 2003 and its US premiere at DTW in January 2004. It has since enjoyed a return engagement at DTW in 2004, a special run at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York in 2005, and has appeared in full or in part on Family Matters at DTW, at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden, Boston’s First Night Festival, Concord Summer Stages Dance in both 2004 and 2006, Two Rivers Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, The New Haven Educational Center for the Arts in Connecticut and in the inaugural season of the Barnard/DTW project in November 2005. Parker has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Arena di Verona Ballet Company, Anna Sokolow Players Project, Summer Stages Dance in Concord, MA and numerous colleges and universities throughout North America and Europe. His collaborative work with Dutch avant-garde designers Melanie Rozema and Jeroen Teunissen was awarded a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award in 2002. Internationally Parker's work has been presented at numerous European festivals including The Holland Dance Festival (The Hague), International Biennale de Charleroi Danses (Belgium), Confrontations Festival (Prague), Dance Week (Zagreb), Divadelna Nitra (Slovakia), Belluard Bollwerk (Switzerland), Tanzesprache (Vienna), Nervi Estate Festival (Genoa), Ballett Umbria (Perugia), Invito Alla Danza (Rome), Tanzmesse NRW (Essen), Dutch Touch (Paris), OT301 (Amsterdam) and the Monaco Danse Forum (Monte Carlo). Domestic touring highlights include appearances in Philadelphia at the Annenberg Center (Dance Affiliates), Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Kaatsbaan Center in Tivoli, New York, Sushi in San Diego, Clarice Smith PAC at the University of Maryland, Boston First Night Festival, Fire Island Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside-Out Festival and the American Dance Festival’s Young Choreographers and Composers program. Parker serves on the faculty of the Alvin Ailey School, Barnard College, the board of directors of Danspace Project and The Field and is a member of the Bessies Committee. He is also a co-founder of The Pink Ribbon Project: Dancers in Motion Against Breast Cancer. Upcoming performances include a new work created for the freshman class at The Juilliard School in December, The Krannert Center in Champaign, IL in February and the premier of Hour Upon The Stage to be presented by Dance Theater Workshop in May. The Bang Group has been generously supported by the Jerome Robbins Foundation (twice), Greenwall Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts (Build Grant 2001-2002), Arts International (three times), Fund for Mutual Understanding, Netherland-America Foundation (four times), 2wice Foundation, Hale Matthews Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Heathcote Foundation, Amy Sue Rosen Foundation, and various commissioning initiatives through Dance Theater Workshop and Danspace Project as well as by several private donors. |
