Scintillating Balinese Dance Fusion from Around the Globe to Appear in
Temples in the Forest
Featuring BALAM Dance Theatre in The Central Park Conservancy’s series A Clearing in the Forest
Free Dance Performance and Workshops
Presented at The Great Hill in Central Park in New York City.  June 1, 2008, 1-3 p.m.

Tigerlily and the Dragonfly, Photo: Neil Sapienza

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
      Contact: Joyce Luhrs, Publicist, 201-592-9126, luhrsassocpress [at] rcn.com
      Carlos Fittante, Artistic Director, 646-361-9183

(NEW YORK, NY)—May 20, 2008-- BALAM Dance Theatre (BALAM) will appear on Central Park’s Great Hill in New York City on June 1, 2008 and present the vibrant program Temples in the Forest, a dance performance and workshop program showcasing traditional Balinese and original fused pieces of Balinese and Western music and dance styles.  The family friendly program was created for the Central Park Conservancy’s series, A Clearing in the Forest, and is free and open to the public.
       Temples in the Forest offers an array of diverse cultural dance styles and techniques from the around the world fused with Balinese theatre.  The program features the scintillating Balinese dance duet Oleg Tambulilingan (Love Dance of the Bumblebees) performed by the company’s resident guest artist Nani Devi, a native of Indonesia, and artistic director Carlos Fittante.  BALAM’s signature work, Ramayana-Abduction of Sita, follows and presents an action packed ballet inspired by the Hindu epic.
       The program’s eclectic repertoire includes La-Tina, a humorous solo choreographed to Bobby Capo’s Latin music hit, Piel de Canela, utilizing cha-cha-cha and a comedic Balinese mask; Tigerlily and the Dragonfly, a fantasy courtship on point inspired by the Oleg Tambulilingan, and Hanuman the Monkey King, a whimsical masked solo utilizing gamelan music and Lester Horton dance technique. 
       BALAM’s newest company members, Ana Wu and Harry Chau, premiere in Primordial Embers- Episode 1, a contemporary duet depicting a bombastic meeting of fire gods dancing to a gamelan inspired jazz score.  Wu and Chau will join the rest of the company, Kristina Berger, Robin Gilbert, and Toshinori Hamada, in Bali-Bolero Unrapped, a celebratory ensemble dance, to close the program.  In this cutting-edge piece, yoga and hip-hop movements are fused and performed to Ravel’s Bolero using a recording by Gamelan Son of Lion, New York’s celebrated contemporary Javanese gamelan ensemble, with a rap artist rapping a Sanskrit invocation taken from a yoga sun salutation.

Workshops
       Audience members of all ages will be invited to participate in an introductory Balinese dance workshop offered by Nani Devi, who will teach excerpts from the Oleg Tambulilingan.  Audience members will learn how to descend as a Balinese goddess and to dance and flirt with Balinese fans.  Carlos Fittante, a teacher at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, will lead a second workshop on Balinese mask work and teach the audience participants some of the playful movements seen in the masked solo Hanuman the Monkey King.  BALAM will provide Balinese fans and masks for the participants to use during the workshop.

About BALAM
         BALAM offers a new vision of contemporary dance that emanates from a cutting-edge fusion of diverse cultural dance styles and movement techniques.  The company’s fusion repertoire presents an opulent dance theatre that blends contemporary choreography, eclectic music, striking masks, imaginative props, and vibrant costumes to create a performance that appeals to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. 
            In 1979, Islene Pinder, a Lehman College dance educator, founded the company and brought the mesmerizing Balinese dance theatre style to New York audiences.  Under the directorship of Spanish-American choreographer Carlos Fittante, BALAM’s fusion repertoire blends boldly divergent dance styles and movements, including ballet, Spanish, Lester Horton, Baroque, Latin, Hip-Hop, Noh, and karate, as well as Balinese.
            BALAM has been featured at several distinguished festivals and venues, such as First Night New York; Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors; La Mama Experimental Theatre, New York, New York; Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, Massachusetts, and many others.   The company has also appeared internationally at the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar, Bali and the 2nd Encuentro Internacíonal de Danza Contemporánea in Cancún, Mexico.
            The company’s work has received critical recognition from the New York Times and Village Voice.  The Governor and people of Bali and the Indonesian Consulate of New York have highly commended its performances.

About the Central Park Conservancy
           The Central Park Conservancy's mission is to restore, manage, and preserve Central Park, in partnership with the public, for the enjoyment of present and future generations.  The Central Park Conservancy is a private, not-for-profit organization founded in 1980 that manages Central Park under a contract with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.  Thanks to the generosity of many individuals, corporations, foundations, and the City of New York, the Conservancy has invested more than $450 million to date into the Park making it a model for urban parks worldwide.  The Conservancy provides 85% of Central Park's $27 million annual operating budget and is responsible for all basic care of the Park.  For more information on the Conservancy, visit www.centralparknyc.org.


Location
            The Great Hill in Central Park
Enter the Park at West 106th Street, New York, NY

(Publicity by Luhrs & Associates)
            For further information, please call 646-361-9183