Why You Should Keep An Eye on Josh Beamish
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.