Award-winning ballerina, choreographer and artistic director Shoko Tamai returns with her company of five dancers and martial artists for the 2018 season of NINJA BALLET at The Secret Theater, 4402 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY. The company will present five performances, from Thursday June 28 to Sunday July 1. The company’s new work, “MA”, the Japanese word for negative space, will premiere. Live music.
Founded in 2017, Ninja Ballet Dance Company merges classical ballet with traditional martial arts, creating an immersive and interactive dance theater performance with original music, special effects and fight choreography. Performers blur the line between what is real and what is possible, using acrobatics, fire and weaponry, with new technologies helping to facilitate an interactive theatrical experience. Ninja Ballet seeks to reconnect people with nature and to create a space where dance, music and visual arts become one. “We hope to inspire conscious awareness, connecting nature and humanity,” says Ms. Tamai.
The live musical accompaniment for Ninja Ballet’s 2018 summer season will be provided by six artists: William Catanzaro on percussion (including Shiva Drum), Alfonso Montiel on Singing Bowl and Gong, Michael Joseph Burdi on flute and Oud, Kento Iwasaki Watanabe at the Koto (traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument), Edwin Rodriguez (percussion, Indian drum and Native American flute) and Vladimir Demin at the Handpan Drum.
The production features dance choreography by Shoko Tamai, with dancers Rezy Pardito, Nellie Licul, Kirsten Reynolds, Pan Yu and Edward Reyes; fight choreography by martial arts expert Tony Ortiz.
NINJA BALLET
SUMMER 2018 SEASON
THE SECRET THEATER
4402 23RD STREET
LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 11101
TICKETS – https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3394261
$30 online $35 at the door
Phone: (718) 392-0722
DATES AND TIMES OF REPRESENTATION:
June 28: 7:30 p.m.
June 29: 7:30 p.m.
June 30: 2:30 p.m.
June 30: 7:30 p.m.
July 1: 7:30 p.m.
* ABOUT “MA”:
“MA”, a Japanese word for negative space, or the space between time, occurring in the moment of “now” and in the imagination of the human being experiencing these elements. Ninja Ballet Dance Company will explore the concept of “MA” and its connection to the ancient Mayan legend of Zopilote, a vulture god who feasts on the newborn.
Zopilote lives in balance between life and death, consuming the dead and giving birth to new life. When Zopilote devours Subaru’s child, a female Ninja, she creates a deadly enemy: a heartbroken mother who will do anything for revenge. Subaru makes it her mission to find and kill Zopilote, but at the same time, in negative space, she herself is hunted by Scorpion, a Ninja assassin determined to find and kill her in retaliation for the murder of her clan. of his own parents.
The cycle of revenge will unfold and blood will be shed. Will Subaru find peace in his revenge? Will Scorpion finally get retaliation for the crimes of Subaru’s clan against his own? Will Zopilote, the ancient and mighty vulture god of the Mayans, allow the balance between life and death to be broken, or will they all learn the power of forgiveness and finally bury their hatred in the past? Everything will be answered in the space between times, the moment of Now, the Negative Space!
ABOUT SHOKO TAMAÏ:
Shoko Tamai has performed at leading venues and dance companies around the world, including London’s Royal Opera House, Lincoln Center and Jacob’s Pillow. She received the Solo Seal Prize from the Royal Academy of Dance in London and was a finalist in the World Ballet Competition. She studied with Peking Opera martial arts trainer Jamie HJ Guan. Ms. Tamai performed with the Dance Theater of Harlem and with Cirque du Soleil in her early days.
Shoko Tamai has been supported by world-renowned artists including Arthur Mitchell, Founder of Dance Theater of Harlem and Keith Saunders (Artistic Director, Dance Theater of Harlem Touring Company), Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil, and Abdel Salaam, Choreographer at Forces du Théâtre de la danse de la nature.
In addition to teaching ballet and other dance styles from ages 2 to 86, Shoko Tamai is the director of “Cosmic Dance Healing”, the practice of exchanging negative energy into positive energy through movement and awareness. Her regular classes at the Montauk Salt Cave, Cosmic Arts in Brooklyn, Studio Oasis in Chinatown, The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), and the Brooklyn Academy Of Music satisfy her “deepest intention to use dance to help heal the world and its inhabitants, one happy student at a time.”
