For Immediate Release
Contact: Ashley Gezana
Phone: 512.923.3111
Email: A.Gezana@LVDance.org
Date: April 11, 2023
Photo Images: available upon request
Contact: b.gaddis@LVDance.org
Direct Phone: (818) 749-6477
Contemporary West Dance Theatre and Founder/Artistic Director Bernard H. Gaddis In Partnership with the City of Las Vegas Parks Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department is proud to announce Contemporary West Dance Theatre’s 2023 Fall season, “CWDT Is Like A Box of Chocolates and Sometimes you just need something Sweet!!”.
On October 06-07, 2023, at the Charleston Heights Arts Center. CWDT’s “Fall in Love with CWDT Fall Concert Series” will present four innovative works by world renown choreographers Adrienne Hurd, Ray Mercer and Founding Artistic Director Bernard H. Gaddis. Ray Mercer, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, has set works on various companies across the country including Philadanco, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, New Jersey Ballet, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Ballet Pensacola, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, and DRA (Dancers Responding to Aids). He has performed with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, as a guest artist with Boston Ballet, and is currently in the Broadway production of The Lion King. He is also a resident choreographer for the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program. Mercer is the recipient of many awards including a 2012 Joffrey Ballet Choreographers of Color Award, a Pensacola Ballet Choreographers Award, and he is a five-time winner of Broadway’s Gypsy of the Year Award for best onstage performance. Recently acknowledged for his choreography in The New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, and Movement Magazine, Mercer has also been commissioned to choreograph a work for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. Adrienne Hurd is a native New Yorker. She studied at the Joffrey Ballet School, the School of American Ballet and The Ailey School on Scholarship. She danced with Neubert Ballet, Ailey II, and The Jamison Project. She was Ms. Jamison’s assistant for the early works. Adrienne has worked with Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, Michael Peters, Paula Abdul, Twyla Tharp, Garth Fagan, Donald McKayle, Graciela Daniele, Jeff Calhoun, Hans von Manon, Vince Patterson, Earl Mosley, and Dance Brazil. She has appeared in numerous Broadway shows and commercials. Adrienne and her husband Lutin Tanner are choreographers for The Middle Collegiate Arts Ministry. She has taught at the University of Minnesota, St. Petersburg Dance festival, Dance New Amsterdam, and The Ailey School.
Contemporary West Dance Theatre (CWDT), is a multicultural non-profit organization founded in March 2007. Making historic strides as the first professional Contemporary Dance Theatre, and the first to be founded by two people of color in the city of Las Vegas, and the state of Nevada. Bernard H. Gaddis and Charmaine Hunter. These former principal dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Theatre of Harlem (respectively) created Las Vegas’ first premiere contemporary modern dance company, named by the Las Vegas Review Journal as one of the “Fab Four” Arts organizations in Nevada. Gaddis continues to lead the company and states. “CWDT has a dance methodology that integrates classical and modern paradigms with an athleticism that gives audiences a more profound dance experience”. CWDT dancers are passionate, relatable, and highly skilled, and have been bringing virtuoso performances to the stage that have excited and inspired audiences around the world for over a decade. CWDT was voted “Best Dance Company to Represent Las Vegas” two years in a row, and its Founder and Artistic Director, Bernard H. Gaddis was recently Awarded Best Choreographer in Las Vegas. ###
PERFORMANCE/TICKET INFORMATION
Oct 06-07, 2023 Charleston Heights Arts Center 800 Brush Street Las Vegas, NV 89107 *Tickets on Sale August 31, 2023 Curtain Times, 7:30pm Purchase Tickets (702) 229-ARTS (2787) or visit www.LVDance.org