{"id":378578,"date":"2025-11-14T15:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T15:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/378578\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T15:17:19","slug":"noted-choreographer-robert-battle-brings-a-world-premiere-to-bruce-wood-dance-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/378578\/","title":{"rendered":"Noted choreographer Robert Battle brings a world premiere to Bruce Wood Dance Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer<\/strong>
Rich@DallasVoice.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Bruce Wood Dance Dallas returns to the stage this month with GLOW, which features three works of contemporary dance. BWDD will present pieces by Lars Lubovitch and Bruce Wood, but new to this show is one world premiere. BWDD has also commissioned \u201cBad Dog No Biscuits\u201d by Robert Battle, former artistic director of the acclaimed company Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for this show.<\/p>\n

At the time of this interview, there were no biscuits in Battle\u2019s mind yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a title yet. I\u2019m working on that,\u201d he said back in mid-October. \u201cTitles are the hardest thing. But we just finished and something will come once I see it all together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piece incorporates jazz with high-spirited movement for Battle\u2019s world premiere. With a score that includes Chet Baker, Sean Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and more, the concept of \u201cBad Dog\u201d began on a plane.<\/p>\n

The first piece of music Battle found on the flight to Dallas. That seemed to open the door for the rest.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cBad Dog No Biscuit\u201d rehearsals (Photo by Natalie Bracken)<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it\u2019s on your mind, it becomes fairly organic. I picked this first jazz piece, and the rest sort of revealed themselves to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Along with \u201cBad Dog No Biscuits,\u201d GLOW will feature \u201cConcerto Six Twenty-Two\u201d by choreographer Lar Lubovitch and \u201cNo Sea To Sail In\u201d by the company\u2019s founder, the late Bruce Wood. Performances run Nov. 21-23 at Moody Performance Hall.<\/p>\n

Battle described \u201cBad Dog\u201d as a celebration of dance and dancers \u2014 which makes sense for the longtime artist. His own work and career have been celebrations of the same.<\/p>\n

Battle is the founder of Battleworks Dance Company. Perhaps his most notable appointment was being hand-selected by Judith Jamison in 2011 to become the third artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.<\/p>\n

During his 13-year tenure at Ailey, Battle discovered the relationship dance can have with the trying times of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiving into Alvin\u2019s trajectory, I had this revelation that when he started in 1958, it was on the cusp of civil rights, and he was celebrating the human spirit. But also, there\u2019s some touchpoint in healing,\u201d he explained. \u201cAs creatives, then and now, we have this pressure of speaking to those intense moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cResistance can come in many forms,\u201d he continued. \u201cFor him then and me now, it comes in the form of creating joy and hope in a time where we feel hopeless, angry and disconnected.\u201d<\/p>\n

That perspective and vision would manifest into extensive accolades that included Battle being named a Master of African American Choreography by the Kennedy Center, an Art of Change Fellow by the Ford Foundation and a Princess Grace Foundation Statue awardee.
Battle currently serves as the Paul Taylor Dance Company resident choreographer in New York City. But he\u2019s also had an extensive relationship with Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cDallas has always been in orbit for a while,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I had Battleworks, three of those dancers were from SMU. So I created work there as well and became aware of Bruce Wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter leaving Ailey, I was teaching at a festival in Oklahoma where the company performed, and I met Joy who had seen works of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoy\u201d is Joy Halperin, the executive director of BWDD.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are incredibly excited to share his new work with our North Texas audience,\u201d she said of Battle\u2019s premiere.<\/p>\n

When Battle visited with her and the company and taught a masterclass, he was excited about this opportunity to create a new piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a really special company, and the level of talent is really high \u2014 on par with some of the larger New York companies,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s this quiet strength about this company that is easy to appreciate.\u201d <\/p>\n

For tickets, visit BruceWoodDance.org.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RICH LOPEZ | Staff writerRich@DallasVoice.com Bruce Wood Dance Dallas returns to the stage this month with GLOW, which…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":378579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[181728,5229,181729,167978,1596,10929,181730,181731,15408,181732,15409,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-378578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-alvin-ailey-american-dance-theatre","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-battleworks-dance-company","11":"tag-bruce-wood-dance-dallas","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-dance","14":"tag-lar-lubovitch","15":"tag-paul-taylor-dance-company","16":"tag-rich-lopez","17":"tag-robert-battle","18":"tag-stage-notes","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115548720492235175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}