The Trey McIntyre Project, created by Kansas-born choreographer Trey McIntyre, is a dance company whose reputation, skill, ingenuity and excellence in dance knows no boundaries. The company's home is in Boise, and it will make its Sun Valley debut at the Sun Valley Pavilion for two performances on Thursday, Aug. 27, and Friday, Aug. 28, at 9:30 p.m. Tickets range from $35 to $55.
The Trey McIntyre Project will be the first dance company to perform on the pavilion stage.
"It is an honor and we are excited to do it," company executive director and dancer John Michael Schert said. "Sun Valley is an amazing community and we get to connect with people living in Idaho. It's a great introduction."
Schert said this will be the beginning of an annual residence for the company. In addition, he said, the support and generosity of Sun Valley Co. has allowed the dance company to offer community outreach education in dance with free classes.
"We want to build strong relations with the community and have Sun Valley be our summer home," Schert said.
The company will perform a number of dance pieces including the Western debut of "The Sun Road," a new masterpiece commissioned by Wolf Trap Foundation for its "Face of America" series. "The Sun Road" is inspired by Glacier National Park, focusing on the environmental challenges the park faces with the impending loss of its glaciers.
McIntyre is the sixth choreographer to be invited to create a piece about a national park for the "Face" series, and he has chosen to create his work using a multi-media format that features large-scale video projections of footage filmed and edited by McIntyre in Glacier.
The filmed portion of "The Sun Road" captures the immense beauty of Glacier National Park, and features the dancers in many of the shots, who are, in McIntyre's words, "reacting to the natural environment."
The work is set to Blackfoot native pow-wow music and songs by Paul Simon and Nina Simone, and is performed live in front of the video projections.
"We have been working on it for two years," Schert said. "The park is stunning and we did scouting this past June with the company and a large film crew. We went to the park for a week to film on location."
Schert said a film was edited from the footage and will be submitted to film festivals.
McIntrye was also inspired to create another piece from his work on "The Sun Road" called "Shape." He created the seven-minute-long work while doing a residency at White Oak Plantation in Florida for "The Sun Road."
"It's incredible," Schert said. "Trey created it in three days, and it's a beautiful, unique piece."
The Trey McIntyre Project will premiere the never-before-seen "Shape" in Sun Valley. In addition, the company will be roaming Ketchum and Sun Valley and plans to do impromptu performances as part of a new engagement method called "spurban performances."
"You may see us performing on a street corner and think what is this, but it's us trying to do more while on tour," Schert said. "Sometimes people need to see art out of context."
For tickets call 622-2135.
Sabina Dana Plasse: splasse@mtexpress.com
The Trey McIntyre Project will present “The Sun Road” and makes its Sun Valley debut at the Sun Valley Pavilion.
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