The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University

The acknowledgement of J.S. Bach's music as a long-time and continuous inspiration to choreographers throughout the evolution of dance performance has moved Peabody Dance Artistic Director, Carol Bartlett, to capitalize on the opportunity to embrace Peabody's wealth of resources. She has invited both Preparatory music faculty and Conservatory student players to collaborate in this year's dance showcase, which traditionally has featured new choreography and Peabody Dance's upper level students. The program consists of three major new dances, set to three of Bach's works: the Flute Sonata in G Major, the Violin Partita in D minor and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. Bartlett celebrates her 20^th year at Peabody, during which she has collaborated with almost every music department in the Peabody Conservatory, in particular with numerous composers who have since made their mark on the national and international scene.

A highlight of this year's showcase is the return of alumni students who have pursued careers in dance. In 2001, Bartlett invited alumni back to participate in performances at the Spoleto Festival. Now, with an ever-current interest in following the professional lives of former Peabody Dance students, Bartlett has initiated a project for this year's showcase with five alumni who have been gathering together for rehearsals both at NYU and at local studios. They are rehearsing a movement/music/video montage about themselves entitled Letters to Myself.

Directed by 1992 Peabody Dance alumna, Meghan Flanigan, this project is a collage of reflections by the dancers on what they have learned since leaving behind their childhood. Flanigan is a dance artist whose work includes choreography for theaters and site-specific locations, multi-disciplinary collaborations, improvisation, performance and community focused work. She graduated from Brown University in 1996 and studied and performed in New York City before moving to London, England to study and later teach at the Laban Centre. Flanigan returned to Baltimore in August 2008 after three years in Bogota, Columbia as an artist, educator and curator. Letters to Myself is set to Bach's Violin Partita in D minor played live by violinist, Andrea Picard. Originally from Quebec where she performed, taught, and earned the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec à Montréal's award with highest distinction, Picard is a Peabody graduate, faculty member in the Preparatory string department, and also teaches at the Société Musicale d'Été Vivaldi.

This work is preceded in the program by a ballet set to Bach's Flute Sonata in G Major, and followed by a contemporary dance work set to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. Two Peabody Dance ballet faculty members are choreographic collaborators for the sonata, created for 16 upper level students. Katherine Morris, former member of the Pennsylvania Ballet and teacher, choreographer, and director in numerous Pennsylvania dance schools and colleges, is joined by Debra Robinson, who is on the dance faculty of the Baltimore School for the Arts, and is an alumna and current Peabody Dance faculty member. Five students in the Conservatory's Early Music Department will provide a live performance for this ballet, coached by Gwyn Roberts, Director of the Early Music Program at University of Pennsylvania and co-director of Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra. Rounding off the program, the Brandenburg Concerto, choreographed by Bartlett, is a transformative and at times jovial interpretation of Bach's composition set for eight student dancers.

Entering its 95^th year, Peabody Dance could well be the first and certainly the most longstanding dance program in the United States. A widespread interest among U.S. music schools and conservatories in Dalcroze's Eurythmics, a teaching method to promote musicality through movement, provided a catalyst for Peabody to formalize a dance training division in 1914. Through the decades, Peabody Dance introduced innovative programs in such areas as Native American dancing as well as Classical Ballet, Modern Dance, Spanish Dance and many other dance forms.

In 2001, Barbara Weisberger, protégée and close colleague of George Balanchine and founding artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet, was appointed as Peabody Dance's Artistic Advisor. Together, she and Bartlett have nurtured a vital, well-grounded teaching/learning environment. Particular emphasis has been placed on a restructured ballet curriculum typifying the vibrant physicality of American classicism, which co-exists with the continuing, vigorous, and diversified contemporary dance program. This showcase event is a significant example of the artistic standard, creativity, and community enrichment that Bartlett, Weisberger, and their colleagues at Peabody Dance passionately endorse and strive to promote.