MOVEMEDIA II

At the age of 17 David started dancing at Premiere Dance Center. Shortly after his first performance at Celebrity Dance Competition, he was awarded a scholarship to attend Idyllwild Arts Academy, where he received the Bella Lewitzky Award. He also trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and Ballet Austin 2. David joined Sonia Dawkins Dance Theatre and Daniel Cruz’s Cruz Control dancing at Choreography Under the Stars Festival in Palm Springs.

Kirk Peterson had a distinguished career for 15 years with American Ballet Theatre as principal dancer, choreographer, Artistic Director of ABTII, Ballet Master, Principal Character Artist and as Master Teaching Associate. He was also principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet, Harkness Ballet, The National Ballet of Washington and London Festival Ballet. Peterson was Artistic Director of the Hartford Ballet for five years and Associate Artistic Director of Alberta Ballet. As a choreographer, Peterson has created over 50 ballets including new versions of The Firebird and Le Sacre du Printemps. His choreography has been seen with San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, The National Ballet of Cuba, Washington Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, BalletMet, San Francisco Opera and The Royal Ballet School. He is a specialist in re-staging the full-length classical repertoire such as Giselle, Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty and most recently Swan Lake. He has also choreographed original versions of Coppelia and The Nutcracker. Peterson was nominated for the prestigious Prix Benois de la Danse in Moscow for Othello, created for Alberta Ballet. Peterson was resident choreographer for Cincinnati Ballet for six years and he is also a repetiteur for the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust.

Giving sleek, modern form to romantic ideas, “Eyes” is a contemporary classic.

To a rippling and insistent piano score by Philip Glass, played live onstage by Stuart Leitch, three couples take turns dancing. The transitions between these duets are as intriguing as the duets themselves. In a recurring image, a man appears standing behind his partner, wrapping his arm around her with his hand pressed tenderly against her shoulder. They have come to rest in a private world where their unspoken thoughts seem to offer them shelter. Each time a couple who has just finished dancing stand locked in this embrace, the other two couples come bursting in. They frisk and leap impatiently, as if goaded by desire.

Once the stage has cleared, each duet reveals new inventions: powerhouse lifts and snaking, fluid gestures; intricate footwork and handholds that enlace the partners.