Press

ALBANY, NY – The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (ESDC), resident company of The Egg, will perform at the New York State Museum on Saturday, February 18 in a program to complement the Ann Zane Shanks: Behind the Lens exhibition, creating an unusual juxtaposition of the visual through both the camera’s eye and the dancers’ movement.

A docent-led tour of the exhibition at 7 p.m. will precede the 8 p.m. performance by ESDC in the Clark Auditorium.

The Ann Zane Shanks exhibition explores the rich and varied career of the Brooklyn-born photographer who has brought her artistic and entrepreneurial gifts to photojournalism, publishing, television and theater. Shanks' early commissioned work for public housing authorities and libraries sent her to document poor communities along the East Coast, yielding some of her most enduring images.

This retrospective exhibition of 75 photographic prints, previously seen at the New-York Historical Society, covers several themes of Shanks’ work from the 1950s through the 1970s -- life in America, changing times, travel and celebrity portraits. Her first film, “Central Park (1970),” an independent short acquired by Columbia Pictures, is on continuous view, along with some of the original books and magazines in which her work appeared.

The performance program will include repertory selections that relate to the themes in Shanks’ work. “Rising Low,” a poignant tale of loss and loneliness with music by Otis Taylor and Iris DeMent, connects to the issues of poverty and repression portrayed in some of Shanks’ photographs. Since city life permeates the works on display, ESDC will also perform excerpts from “Metropolis,” an exploration of the dynamic of various times of the day in a bustling, fast-paced city. The accompanying music for these works features new arrangements of Leonard Bernstein music by Grammy nominee Don Byron.

Also included on the program will be excerpts from ESDC’s full evening work, “From the mind/of a single, long vine/one hundred opening lives,” a work choreographed to African and African-American music that delves into the makeup of a community -- the people and their universal experiences. These excerpts tie in to Shanks’ focus on individuals and their place in society.

Tickets for the evening’s activities are $5 for museum members and $10 for the general public with a special discounted price of $7 for groups of 10 or more. Further information and reservations

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can be obtained by calling the NYS Museum at (518) 408-1033. Tickets also will be sold at the Museum main lobby desk after 10 a.m. the day of the performance.

Artistic Director and choreographer Ellen Sinopoli will be on hand for the performance and offer insights into her work during the program. About the evening, Sinopoli says, “I am delighted to have the opportunity to present my work in conjunction with the wonderful photography of Ann Zane Shanks. Her work speaks to me on many levels and elicits a reaction in me that is so very familiar to the inspirations that I had in creating many of my works, a few of which I have chosen for this program. The combination of the tour and the performance is an exciting partnering of art forms and one that should readily appeal to both visual arts enthusiasts and dance aficionados.”

The Ann Zane Shanks exhibition opened on May 15, 2005 and is scheduled to close on February 26. It was organized by guest curator Bonnie Yochelson, whose previous exhibitions include Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, 1935-1939 (Museum of the City of New York, 1998), which was featured at the State Museum November 2000 through April 2001.

The performances and programs of the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company are funded, in part,

by the New York State Council on the Arts and the City of Albany.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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