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MOMENTA is the resident performing arts
company of The Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park. MOMENTA
is in reality two companies. The Senior Company is a small group of
seasoned professionals augmented as needed by highly skilled advanced
students. The Junior Company is a large group of talented young dancers who
are developing their performing skills. Incorporated in 1983 by its
directors Stephanie Clemens, Larry Ippel and James Tenuta, MOMENTA
grew out of a need to create opportunities for local choreographers and
composers and to give young artists performing experience. In 1988, MOMENTA
broadened its scope and began to acquire the rights to perform dance works
by American Dance pioneer  Doris Humphrey, a native of Oak
Park. In addition to these internationally known works, MOMENTA
has expanded its repertoire to include choreography by Humphrey's
associates Ruth St. Denis, Charles Weidman and Eleanor King. In the past
few seasons, MOMENTA has presented more than three dozen of
these historic works; this commitment makes MOMENTA's
repertoire of historic American modern dance one of the largest of any
company in the United States.
Despite this
concentration on the historic repertoire, MOMENTA continues
to present new works by its own directors and other local Chicago
choreographers. In the past few years, MOMENTA's audiences
have seen new dances by Joanne Barrett, Homer Bryant, Frank Chaves, Judith
Chitwood, Ron DeJesus, Randy Duncan, Keith Elliott, Ilene Evans, Anita
Fillmore, Samantha Fitschen, Sarah Cullen Fuller, Laura Gallardo-Brand, Winifred
Haun, Sandra Kaufmann, Jon Lehrer, Lauri Macklin, Cora D. Mitchell, James
Morrow, Sarah Najera, Jason Ohlberg, Regina Sigismondi, Chuitlahuac Suarez,
Tom Trimble, and Raphaelle Ziemba.
During MOMENTA's
1989-91 seasons, our dancers performed throughout New Mexico, New York
State, New Jersey and at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The
company regularly performs throughout the Chicago area. From January
through December 1990, we presented or performed in 50 concerts. The
1991-92 season included a restoration of Ishtar, a 1923 work by Ruth St.
Denis, Charles Weidman's beautiful tribute to Doris Humphrey Brahms
Waltzes, and Concertino pour Trois by the late Ruth Page. MOMENTA
dancers toured in Brazil and Russia in the summer of 1993. During 1995, the
Centennial Year of Humphrey's birth, MOMENTA was a focal
company staging a number of her works. MOMENTA has
been a featured performer at Dance Chicago for the past four years and has
been featured on Channel 11’s (WTTW) ArtBeat three times.
The Tidmarsh Arts
Foundation has sent MOMENTA into the local schools in Districts
90, 91, 97 and 200 during 1995-96. We have offered movement workshops and
historical dance lecture/demonstrations on Doris Humphrey. These programs
are funded by matching funds from the Tidmarsh Arts Foundation, local PTO's
and the Oak Park Area Arts Council.
In the summer of 2003,
MOMENTA toured in Austria as one of the Stars of Tomorrow for Tanzsommer
International. Twelve dancers
performed works by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham and Doris
Humphrey – as well as contemporary works by Ron DeJesus and Sarah Cullen.
Works in repertory
include Doris Humphrey's works Water Study, Day on Earth, The Call/Breath
of Fire, Two Ecstatic Themes, Grieg Concerto, Air for the G String,
Soaring, Sonata Pathetique and Invention. Ruth St. Denis works include
Incense, Cobra, Radha, Ishtar of the Seven Gates, Kashmiri Nautch, Valse a
la Loie and Minute Waltz. From Eleanor King's choreography, MOMENTA
has Roads to Hell and Mother of Tears. Contemporary choreography highlights
works by Stephanie Clemens, Larry Ippel and James Tenuta including
Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat, Peter Maxwell Davies' Vesalii Iconi, Facade
by Edith Sitwell and William Walton, Oblique3 with music by Jerry Goodman
and Torrid Bloom to music by Robert Falesch and “Sharing the Moment” to an
original score by Ilya Levinson.
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