Press:

Memories of a Venerable Showcase
New York Times
December 30, 2007

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By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO

FROM dance enclaves in the Bronx to roving, artist-run collectives, showcases for “emerging choreographers” — that fuzzy, mutable category — are a dime a dozen these days. But this week one of the pioneers, the Fresh Tracks series at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea, reaches an important milestone: 500 artists presented, counting a few double appearances.

Fresh Tracks, which will present work by seven choreographers on Friday and next Saturday, has run, in one guise or another, since Dance Theater Workshop was founded as an artists’ collective by Jeff Duncan, Art Bauman and Jack Moore in 1965. The list of participants, chosen through open auditions, is a Who’s Who of contemporary dance, including Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wendy Perron, Doug Elkins, Reggie Wilson, David Parsons, Meredith Monk, Bebe Miller, Tere O’Connor and Maria Hassabi. Deborah Jowitt, the dance historian, teacher and longtime Village Voice critic who has reviewed so many Fresh Tracks evenings, performed in the very first program.

As usual with such long-running, grass-roots (at least at first) efforts, there are conflicting versions of history. Ms. Jowitt, for one dismisses the idea that the showcase, then called the Studio Series, had anything to do with Fresh Tracks. No matter; she is claimed by others. “Hogwash or not, I just love that history,” said David Dorfman, the choreographer and Connecticut College professor, describing a placard in the old theater’s lobby listing Fresh Tracks artists. “This is our history. It’s our little internal history. It’s important.”

This week Mr. Dorfman will be cheering on two former students, Maggie Bennett and Rebecca Serrell. “I was as excited for them as I was when I got it” in 1985, he said.

Their excitement brought back memories of his own performance. “Nervousness and utter enjoyment is what I remember feeling,” he said, “and still feel thinking about it.”