PearsonWidrig DanceTheater

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Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig's PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER was formed in 1987 and is based in New York City. Their work has been produced by the city's major dance venues including Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, the City Center Fall for Dance Festival, DTW, the Kitchen, Central Park SummerStage, P.S. 122, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, and Dancing in the Streets. They have received foundation support from the NEA, NYSCA, and NPN, and the Rockefeller, Altria, Harkness, Jerome, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore, Puffin, Swiss Center and Sequoia Foundations, as well as the Asian Cultural Council and Arts International. Video specials featuring their work have appeared on the national television networks of India, South Korea, Mexico and Greece.

Their best-known work is "Ordinary Festivals," which has been seen by over 18,000 people on three continents. The New York Times called it "most amazing! most enjoyable!" The company employs dance, text, and video to explore ideas ranging from the socio-political--in "Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans" (“Heart-wrenching and wryly comic” [The Washington Post]) -- to the poetic -- in "Thaw" (“Carries enough everyday magic for several productions” -- Eva Yaa Asantewaa) -- to the mystical piece "The Return of Lot’s Wife" ("unfolds with the pulsating rhythm of a carefully crafted poem" [The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY]).

They also do site-specific projects and community dance/theater/video installations. This site work has featured rowboats in Central Park, the Great Lawn at Jacob's Pillow, the Eiun-In Buddhist temple in Kyoto, the modern architecture of I. M. Pei’s Portland Museum of Art, and Wave Hill, the bucolic estate in the Bronx. Their most recent site-adaptive work, "Paradise Pond," premiered on and around the campus pond at Bates College and involved over 100 festival dancers, community participants, and musicians. The work marks the fourth major collaboration with Obie and Bessie award winning composer Robert Een.

Their biggest site-adaptive work, "A Curious Invasion" at Wave Hill, featured 88 performers, 24 haystacks, 10 fans, 5 sprinklers, 4 TV/VCR’s, and 2,000 ice cubes. Elizabeth Zimmer of the Village Voice wrote, "In over a decade of watching Wave Hill events, I’ve never had such a good time. It really was perfect." The piece has also been performed at Gilsland Farm Audubon Sanctuary, Falmouth, ME, 97, commissioned by the Bates Dance Festival; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, 01, co-commissioned by Dancing in the Streets and Wave Hill; Dartmouth College, commissioned by the Hopkins Center, Hanover, NH, 03.

They have also collaborated with composers on work which included music created and performed live by Robert Een, Andy Teirstein, Philip Hamilton, Carman Moore, and Carter Burwell, who created "one of the finest scores for modern dance" (Back Stage) for "The Return of Lot’s Wife."

2007-08 engagements include touring "Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans" to Washington, DC, New Orleans, LA, Saratoga Springs, NY, and Atlanta, GA; the development of the new company/concert stage work "Sayonara, Martha"; the creation of the site-specific performance project "Paradise Pond" in celebration of the Bates Dance Festival’s 25th anniversary, with original music by Obie and Bessie winner Robert Een; a NYC performance season at the Thalia at Symphony Space, a choreographic residency with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, WA; and creative residencies in Switzerland, India, and upstate New York.