Written by Sandra Martinez for THE ARTISTS FORUM MAGAZINE
Edited by Amos White V for THE ARTISTS FORUM, INC
Photo: Courtesy of the Matthew Westerby Company
REVIEWER RATING:
5 out of 5 stars
MATTHEW WESTERBY COMPANY – THE LETTERS PROJECT
NEW YORK, NY (November 10, 2017) Last night, Matthew Westerby Company (MWC) opened its NYC third season at the Hudson Guild Theatre in Chelsea, with the premiere of The Letters Project
⁃ a moving exploration of family, identity and trauma.
“Musically, Letters is lots of vignettes. A lot of self-reflection was put into it,
” said Matthew Westerby, artistic director of MWC. “The Letters Project,
” a unique collaboration with composer Bryan Senti, is performed by the MWC performers and choreographed by Westerby himself. I “first talked to Bryan Senti over a year ago about the possibility of making a new work together and how to bring something highly personal to life,
” Westerby continued.
The season also includes MWC repertory works and special guest performances by two different youth dance performances from Covenant Ballet Theatre of Brooklyn and Rivertown Dance Academy. “These are two of the places I’m on faculty and where I’ve seen immense growth in these children, now almost young adults, and I feel a great privilege to know them in these formative years,”
said Westerby.
Insides Out, first premiered as a full-length work at Triskelion Arts in 2014, and Recaptured, an excerpt of (re)NEW, part of the Harlem Project, a community dance project that MWC runs each summer in and around New York City’s Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. Collaborating once again with composer Bryan Senti, the company returns to Triskelion Arts’ Muriel Schulman Theater with a powerful, full-company piece, from May 3 ⁃ 5, 2018 at 8pm. For more information, visit: triskelionarts.org
The Company is currently in residence at York College through the CUNY Dance Initiative and has been in residence for Project Poetry Live! Since 2009, an art project for middle schoolers in Hartford, CT.
For more information about the Matthew Westerby Company, visit: matthewwesterbycompany.org
