Based in Madrid, Spain, and never before seen in New York City, Compañía Nacional de Danza 2 (CND2) brings its passionate contemporary ballet dancers to the Skirball Center stage for the company's final tour with the world-renowned repertoire of former Artistic Director Nacho Duato. See CND2 perform Nacho Duato's Jardi Tancat, L’Amoroso and Gnawa in this limited run.
Performance Length: 95 minutes with 2 intermissions
Click here to download a complete PDF e-Program for Compañía Nacional de Danza 2. This PDF e-Program has been created in support of New York University's sustainability mission and Green Action Plan.
Stay after the performance Thursday evening, March 31 for a Post-Show Talk-Back with Compañía Nacional de Danza 2.
“Dramatic, visually stunning works.”
“A soaring imagination lifts CND2.”
-The Boston Globe
Nacho Duato has redefined the world's perception of Spanish dance. After a highly regarded education and career at the Rambert School in London, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and the Nederland Dans Theater in Holland, Duato returned to Spain in 1990 to take over the Compañía Nacional de Danza. CND2, as it is fondly known, was created in 1999 as the Compañía’s training company to inspire young dancers' hopes, to awaken interest amongst young audiences towards contemporary dance and to enhance the cultural offering panorama.
Together with Assistant Artistic Director Tony Fabre, former dancer of Compañía Nacional de Danza, Nacho has made CND2 a highly seasoned company in its own right, with dynamic dancers and a global audience.
Jardi Tancat was Nacho Duato´s first choreography and was originally made during a workshop at Nederlands Dans Theater. Jardí Tancat - Catalonian for Closed Garden - is a collection of folk songs, based on ancient Spanish folk tales. In these songs, Spaniards direct a supplication to God that is portrayed in the powerful movements of three couples, who are occupied with the sowing, planting and threshing of the barren Catalonian land. They grieve about the lack of rain while trying to maintain high spirits. Desperately but proudly they continue with their work, which is translated into a dynamic and expressive, yet wonderfully naive dance.
World premiere by Nederlands Dans Theater 2 in Hoorn, December 19th, 1983. Premiere by Compañía Nacional de Danza at Teatro Albéniz, Madrid, April 3rd, 1992.
L’Amoroso is Nacho Duato’s first piece created expressly for the CND2. Here he uses a selection of viola da gamba concerts from the Italian baroque. The soft, artful music and the freshness and youth of the dancers inspired Duato to create a dynamic, vital atmosphere on stage.
World premiere by Compañía Nacional de Danza 2 at Teatro de Madrid on May 21, 2004.
In 1992 in his home city of Valencia, Nacho Duato premiered Mediterrania, searching deeper into his roots and those of his forebears, and his sense of complicity with the Mediterranean Sea.
In Gnawa, the renowned choreographer has continued along the path he set out on with Mediterrania, seeking to transmit, through the medium of movement, the sensuality of the landscape, the true nature of its peoples. With a suggestive musical score replete with Spanish and North African sounds, Gnawa captivates its audience through its all-encompassing power and its sensual elegance, combining the spirituality and organic rhythm of the Mediterranean. In Moroccan Folklore, the term Gnawa refers to a musical style of sub-saharian reminiscences practiced by mystic Muslim brotherhoods.
Premiere by the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago at the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, March 2005. Premiere by the Compañía Nacional de Danza at the Euskalduna, Festival Dantzaldia, Bilbao, the 4th of November 2007.
Click here to read more about the Skirball Center Membership Package available for those who wish to attend both CIRCA and Compañía Nacional de Danza.
NYU Skirball Center season programming is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Photos by Fernando Marcos from GNAWA by Nacho Duato. Courtesy of CND2.
