DANNY BURACZESKI
in
RHODE ISLAND
Reknowned dancer and choreographer Danny Buraczeski grew up outside of Allentown Pennsylvania and received a degree in Japanese Studies from Bucknell University. After a career on Broadway, appearing in such musicals as Mame with Angela Lansbury and The Act with Liza Minelli, he formed the original New York City-based JAZZDANCE in 1979 which toured to more than thirty states, Europe, and the Caribbean, and regularly performed to sell-out crowds in New York City. In 1989, he relocated to Minneapolis/St. Paul and merged his company with Zenon Dance Company, where he served as Artistic Co-Director and Resident Jazz Choreographer. That association ended in the summer of 1992 and Buraczeski re-formed JAZZDANCE in the Twin Cities. This company made its debut with a program of new work at the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul in the spring of 1993.
Over two decades Danny Buraczeski's work has traced a clear and deep investigation of jazz - its sources and its ongoing evolution - with a keen attention paid to the rich lineage of individual performers and movement/music makers. Music drives the work and his palate is wide-ranging, embracing Sidney Bechet and Omette Coleman, Terumasa Hino and Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck and Art Pepper, Ellington/Strayhorn, Artie Shaw and Kurt Weill. He regularly invites jazz composers to create scores for his works. Philip Harmon composed Ezekial's Wheel(1999), and will compose the original music for Across the Water, Peter Jones wrote the piano score for 21st Century Stride(1999), and Sir Roland Hanna created the violin-piano score for Among These Cares(1997). These major endeavors have been suported by a network of national presenting partners including the Library of Congress, the Jacob's Pillow and Bates Dance Festivals, Penn State, Bucknell University, the Walker Art Center and the College of St.Catherine. The creation and seventeen city national tour of Ezekiel's Wheel in 1999 was one of only 15 works supported by the National Dance Project.
In addition to JAZZDANCE's repertory, Buraczeski has created works for the Boston Ballet, Ballet Memphis, theater productions, repertory dance companies and university programs. He has taught at each of the nation's major dance festivals and regularly travels to teach around the country and abroad. He has served as the Cowels Chair of the Dance/Theatre Department at the University of Minnesota and often directs the jazz programs at the Jacob's Pillow and Bates Dance Festivals. Buraczeski has received multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts and the Jerome Foundation. In 1991, Bucknell University presented him with its award for outstanding artistic achievment. He was named Artist of the Year in 1999 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
With a professional career spanning 20 years, Danny Buraczeski is now regarded as one of the country's leading jazz choreographers. Drawing on a background in ballet, modern, and jazz dance, and coupling this with a deep appreciation for America's jazz music heritage, his formal explorations, intense musicality, and distinctive point of view distinguish him as one of the most original voices working in the form today.
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