Why You Should Keep An Eye on Josh Beamish

November 28, 2001

Contemporary choreographer Josh Beamish has been all over the ballet news lately thanks to his work as one of four dancer/choreographers in Wendy Whelan’s “Restless Creature” project. But he’s actually spent the past two years setting movement on a whole gaggle of ballet dancers, including Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Carla Körbes and Lindsi Dec, Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Jo-Ann Sundermeier and National Ballet of Canada’s Harrison James. These performers are part of MOVE: the company, his troupe of rotating dancers. They’ll present Beamish’s latest work, Pierced in Vancouver this weekend and New York City next month.

 

The piece actually began as a pas de deux for Whelan and her fellow New York City Ballet principal Robert Fairchild. Beamish then built out the full-length work over the next couple of years, creating movement wherever he traveled—Seattle, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Banff, Nottingham, New York City, DC—using a number of other dancers—PNB’s Angelica Generosa, Jerome Tisserand and Andrew Bartee; Delphine Leroux formerly of Ballet BC; Andrew Murdock from Aszure & Artists; Josh Green from Stephen Petronio Company—as muses in the process. The results look intriguing. Take a peek at this trailer of rehearsal footage.