A nationally renowned contemporary dance company will perform on the Chilkat Center stage on Friday, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m.
Eisenhower Dance Detroit, (EDD) which has been lauded by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Detroit Free Press, hails from Birmingham, Michigan and is now in its thirty-first season as a professional contemporary dance company. It’s home to nationally and internationally known choreographers.
“They rank among one of the finest dance ensembles in the nation,” said Haines Arts Council president Tom Heywood. “It’s contemporary dance. It features a lot of athletic and artfully choreographed pieces that I think audiences here will really enjoy.”
EDD Artistic Director Stephanie Pizzo describes their performance as humorous, reaching and heartfelt with a style that fuses contemporary dance and hip hop. Pizzos’ work “Surge” is set to electronic dance music with an original composition by a techno-artist. The second half of the performance will include music from Motown favorites including Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and Michael Jackson.
The company tours internationally and was featured at the Ladek Zdroi International Dance Festival in Poland and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Similar to Italian violinist Luca Ciarla’s performance earlier this month, Heywood said the arts council had planned to host the dance company in 2019 until the pandemic shut events down.
“This is another one of those precovid plans we had to postpone until they could travel,” Heywood said.
Eight dancers will perform on Friday. Admission is $18 per person. Students get in free thanks to a local couple who donated funds for free student admission, Heywood said.
Haines is one of eight stops on EDD’s Alaska tour. The dance company is also performing in Sitka, Skagway, Juneau, Talkeetna, Anchorage, Valdez and Nome.