works

Here Rests Peggy

“Baldwin’s rich, sensitive, and thoughtful choreography and mise-en-scene will keep you more than interested and-probably better-eagerly grasping at tendrils of recognition that strafe off her lovely piece, leaving you in a rapt state of fascination and curiosity for the duration of the show.”
– Culturebot

Here Rests Peggy is a dance that marches along through time, pushes and pulls, smacks you around, leaves, and returns for more.  The performers appear, reappear, and disappear, both physically and emotionally.  Removing their skin of normalcy they embrace exposure and explore twisted humor, violence, and human fragility.  Inspired by Baldwin’s research fellowship in Bogliasco, Italy, Here Rests Peggy is a dance influenced by the constant crashing of the Ligurian Sea, the dramatic and stylized world of German Expressionist film, and the fascinating life and collection of Peggy Guggenheim.

Choreography Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Ivy Baldwin, Lawrence Cassella, Eleanor Smith and Katie Workum
Music Composition Justin Jones
Lighting Design Chloe Z. Brown
Costume Design Walter Dundervill
Set Design Anna Schuleit

Premiere The Chocolate Factory Theater, 2010

Here Rests Peggy was commissioned by the Chocolate Factory Theater and made possible, in part, by the Bogliasco Foundation Jerome Robbins Fellowship in Dance at the Liguria Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy, William and Karen Tell Foundation, IBD Commissioning Circle Members Olivier Rustat and Kathleen Williams & Mark Abel, creative residencies at Dragon’s Egg in Mystic, CT and by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program. Ivy Baldwin Dance is a 2010 recipient of Building Up Infrastructure Levels for Dance (BUILD), a program of New York Foundation for the Arts

Bear Crown

“There’s something about Ivy Baldwin’s work that’s transporting. It could be the movement, which shifts between childlike play and virtuosity. It might be the attention to detail in every element, from lighting to set to sound, including a settling overture. It might be the five engaging performers, including Baldwin. In all likelihood, it’s everything assembled and polished til it gleams. Baldwin’s new work makes the cavernous theater look wonderful.”
– PBS 13/Sunday Arts

Directly inspired by a one month residency in Bacau, Romania, Bear Crown investigates the cause and effect of great transformation – personal, cultural, emotional – and the inevitable deterioration of what is often deemed powerful, beautiful, and grand. Cannons, harmonicas, sounds of warping metal, and Bonnie Tyler ballads accompany the performers of Bear Crown as they show off their muscles, flirt shamelessly on bear crown rugs, skip nostalgically, and manhandle each other a bit too much.

Choreography Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Ivy Baldwin, Anna Carapetyan, Lawrence Cassella, Mindy Nelson, and Katie Workum
Music Composition Justin Jones
Lighting Design Chloe Z. Brown
Costume Design Alice Ritter
Set Design Mendel Rabinovich

Premiere Dance Theater Workshop, 2009

Bear Crown was commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop and made possible, in part, through the ArtistNe(s)t Residency at the George Apostu Cultural Center (Bacau, Romania), Trust For Mutual Understanding, Dugas Family Foundation, William and Karen Tell Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Exchange Residency, and Dragon’s Egg Residency.

Could be nice….

“Ivy Baldwin is a choreographer with a taste for humor inherent in strangeness and oddity … wildly, darkly imaginative.”
– The New York Times

Encased in a world painted metallic gold, Could be nice…. is a trio set to an original score by Justin Jones with performances by Lawrence Cassella, Mindy Nelson, and Katie Workum. Ready yourself for a bizarre journey into a world inhabited by denizens who dine on clementines and sip pheromone martinis. Sniffing someone’s cheek or tasting exposed limbs, in this all-too intimate world, are the heights of romance. Could be nice…., takes mating rituals back to the flesh and discards human niceties. Performers inhabit dramatic physical archetypes that invoke images of Adonis and Sophia Loren, while exposing the vulnerable under belly of beauty. Accompanied by a score of French dialogues, Ravel, and dark lullabies, Could be nice…. invites you to explore your own sensual inhibitions.

Choreography Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Lawrence Cassella, Mindy Nelson and Katie Workum
Music Composition Justin Jones
Lighting Design Carrie Wood
Costume Design Mindy Nelson
Set Design Ivy Baldwin

Premiere La MaMa E.T.C, 2008

Could be nice… is a 2007 Mondo Cane! Commission from Dixon Place with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Peg Santvoord Foundation, Jerome Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and was performed as a work in progress in November 2007. Additional support was provided by the Karen & William Tell Foundation, IBD Commissioning Circle member Olivier Rustat, and creative residencies at Dragon’s Egg.

It’s Only Me

“The young Ivy Baldwin is a choreographer with a knack for creating oddly coherent other worlds. Her peripatetic imagination turns her dancers into composite creatures, funny and poignant, whose gaits, gestures, and behaviors elicit fascination and empathy”
– The New Yorker

“A fusion of low and high, of elegant and comic, is Baldwin’s secret weapon and the source of her great charm … By turns beautiful and ridiculous, achingly familiar and bracingly strange, Baldwin’s piece kept us off balance.”
– Gay City News

Ivy Baldwin Dance work It’s Only Me, set to an original score by Justin Jones, explores violence and intimacy and the animal versus human instincts living inside all of us. Inspired by the thought that “If it is only you, then there is nothing for anyone to be afraid of,” It’s Only Me is a dark, intimate, funny, and sometimes dangerous work for Lawrence Cassella, Erin Owen, and Zachary Steel.

Choreography Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Ivy Baldwin, Lawrence Cassella, Erin Owen, Zachary Steel
Music Composition Justin Jones
Lighting Design Carrie Wood
Costume Design Mindy Nelson

Premiere Dance New Amsterdam, 2007

It’s Only Me was commissioned by Dance New Amsterdam and made possible, in part, through the Sugar Salon Artist Residency, William and Karen Tell Foundation, Dragon’s Egg Residencies, and IBD Commissioning Circle Members.

Gone Missing

“Still, thinking back over 2006, I remember a few instances of transformation. One is Ivy Baldwin’s GONE MISSING at Dance Theater Workshop.”
– Movement Research Online

“… so smart and so well executed and so full of stimulating invitations for thought…”
– The New York Times

Haunted by whispers and a hovering sense of secrecy that recalls Soviet Russia’s repression, Gone Missing presents five characters wandering through an unfamiliar, ominous forest. Through the dancers’ movements and a stage full of fake snow and a backdrop of twisty pine trees, this dance-theater work suggests snowy storms and treacherous ice and a sense of natural and psychic desolation. Gone Missing is structured as a series of vignettes inspired by Edward Gorey’s darkly witty illustrations and text. Karinne Keithley’s original score integrates Russian folk songs created and performed live by the dancers.

Choreography Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Ivy Baldwin, Lawrence Cassella, Mindy Nelson, Katy Pyle and Jennifer Uzzi
Sound Design Karinne Keithley
Lighting Design Joe Levasseur
Costume Design the Company
Set Design Joe Powel

Commissioned and Premiered Dance Theater Workshop, 2006

Now Leaving Vanderville

“You could probably use some belly laughs and choreographer Ivy Baldwin’s got ’em.”
– The Village Voice

“A wild ride from beginning to end, it is feel-good dance theater with subtle, dark allusions.”
– Off Off Off

Now Leaving Vanderville, an intimate dance-play, follows five inhabitants of Vanderville, a small town where rotating Queens rule the land, everyone wears monochromatic uniforms and eats appropriately matching food, local industry is a duck stuffing factory, and water ballet is the national sport. Now Leaving Vanderville is set to a collection of songs by Kurt Weill and performed live by opera singer Carrie Lewis and musician Franz Nicolay on piano and accordion.

Choreography & Direction Ivy Baldwin
Performed by Ivy Baldwin, Lawrence Cassella, Taryn Griggs, Mindy Nelson & Jeanne Schickler
Music Kurt Weill
Musicians Carrie Lewis and Franz Nicolay
Costume Design Mindy Nelson
Set Design Ivy Baldwin

Premiere Dixon Place, 2004

Now Leaving Vanderville was originally presented and commissioned by Dixon Place’s Mondo Cane! Commissioning Series with additional support from Karen Stavisky, Andrew Rauhauser, The Field and creative residencies at Dragon’s Egg, Mystic, CT. and Nazareth Dance Academy, Rochester, NY.