Current Project
Street Talk, Suite Talk
Anna Myer's newest work fuses rap, contemporary dance, and music for violin. The evening-length piece is being developed through a collaborative process involving the choreographer, seven young poet-rappers, seven dancers, the composer Jakov Jakoulov, and violinist Mark Berger. Advisors to the project include Anthony Toombs and Robert Macy from the On-Track Initiative. A music-based curriculum that helps youth to engage in healthy self-expression, the Initiative is part of the Center for Trauma Psychology.

Street Talk, Suite Talk is a unique and extraordinary combination of people with diverse approaches to art. The juxtaposition of artistic voices and backgrounds generate a dynamic vocabulary of dance, music and poetry. In a world that is often fragmented and distrustful, Street Talk, Suite Talk forges bonds between these diverse worlds, with all working to create a common vision.

Promo Video

Premiere Info:
Mayor Thomas M. Menino City of Boston office presents:
Anna Myer and Dancers, Street Talk Suite Talk

The Strand Theater, 543 Columbia Road, Dorchester, MA.
Friday October 31st at 10am for Boston public schools.
Saturday November 1st at 2pm and 8pm for General public.
All performances are free!

Project bios: Anna Myer Bio | Dancers Bios

Composer Jakov Jakoulov
Composer Jakov Jakoulov was born in Moscow, where he studied in Gnesin Music Academy and Moscow Conservatory as pianist and composer. In 1987 Jakoulov left Moscow to begin to work in Europe, and moved to Boston in 1990. Since beginning his professional career at age twelve, he has gained considerable experience as both composer and pianist. He is the author of three ballets, five concertos, five string quartets, scores for over 20 theatrical, TV and cinema productions, as well as numerous symphonic, chamber, and choral works. In recent years his work has been presented by, among others, the London’s New European Strings Orchestra, Boston Symphony Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s “Future Classics” Series, Boston Symphony Chamber Concerts, and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the New England String Ensemble. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Boston University, and among his many awards are six Annual Awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and membership in the National Honor Music Society. His composition Black Snow was included on a CD that was chosen as one of the “Top Five Classical Recordings of 1999” by Fanfare Magazine.

Anthony Toombs
Anthony Toombs is a psychological counselor with special expertise in dealing with children and teens from inner city environments. He currently serves as Director of the On-Track Initiative of The Trauma Center as well as Director of the Children’s Trauma Recovery Foundation and a Community Counselor Advocate. Earlier in his career, he served on the counseling staff of various residential treatment programs and homeless drop in centers with “at risk” populations in Metro Boston. He is also an experienced and talented musician who uses performing arts as a tool to pique youth’s self awareness and interest.

TiElla Grimes
TiElla Grimes is a recent graduate of Newbury College, where she obtained her Bachelors in Communication. She is a member of the Women of Color Roundtable in Roxbury where she looks at ways to reduce HIV/AIDS in women of African descent. TiElla was on the Advisory Board for the Girls Grant-making Gathering, which is apart of the Women’s Funding Network annual conference. TiElla was also on the committee for Raising Women’s Voices a national conference that addresses issues and disparities around women and healthcare. TiElla is a graduate of the YWCA Boston’s Youth Voice Collaborative. Currently she works full time at the YWCA Boston and part time at the Boston Womens Fund as a Young Sister for Justice in Philanthropy. She has volunteered her time to numerous community events performing spoken word.

Tu Phan
Inspired by hip hop, spoken word, and literature, Tu has been writing poetry for about 3 years now. He loves listening to people speak, reading satirical, history, and spiritual literature, and writing poems, stories, and speeches. His writing consist of socio-economical, environmental, political, and spiritual concepts. His main goal for doing spoken word poetry is to reach out to people in changing their habits.  He lives in Dorchester, MA and will be attending Northeastern University in the fall of 2008 as a freshmen.

PAST PROJECTS

Penumbra
The work is a collaborative effort with neon sculptors Alejandro and Moira Sina. A group of ten children join six company dancers to perform to the music of Bach's cello suites. The performers' overlap of ages, races and cultures embodies the concept of penumbra. By bringing together different artistic disciplines and performers of different ages and races, Myer hopes to draw a broader audience to experience a common center.

All At Once
Features music by Russian-born composer Jakov Jakoulov, conducted by Susan Davenny Wyner and the New England String Ensemble. “All At Once” includes nine dancers, the conductor and twelve musicians (six violins, five cellos, and one bass) all on stage together. This 35-minute piece gives university or community string musicians a chance to work closely with conductor Susan Davenny Wyner, Jakov Jakoulov, and Anna Myer.

"...'All at Once was visually unusual, and emotionally satisfying. At moments, the dance steps seemed to make the musical phrases visible while the musicians’ bowing arms appeared to be doing dances of their own. As they played a richly textured score by Jakov Jakoulov… Striding, crawling and leaping, the dancers forged choreographic trail among and around them, swooping toward them at some moments, keeping their distance at others. The dancing provided visual counterpoint to Mr. Jakoulov’s intensely moody score."
- Jack Anderson, The New York Times

Angle of Repose
Angle of Repose is a geological term referring to the plane in which rocks, dirt and debris come to rest, as well as the title of a novel by Wallace Stegner. This piece is set on ten dancers, including two children and a 77 year old woman. Danced to an eclectic array of music, including, Jackie Wilson’s Lonely TearDrops, Brahms, and the new-age sound of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Angle of Repose charts the unfolding of a life. Built on layers of choreography that use leaning, resting, falling and propulsive movement, the dance develops as a consequence of the weight of preceding and surrounding events and our attempt to give them shape. Angle of Repose (funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Cambridge Arts Council) premiered April 2001 at the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, New York City.

Bluebird No. 173
Featuring seven adults and seven children, this work was inspired by Marc Chagall's painting, "The Birthday Party," as well as musings on domestic life, love songs, and the image of a bluebird. The music, drawn from popular culture, pushes at the boundaries of nostalgia and sensuality.

"Ms. Myer is a master weaver, smoothly blending ages and degrees of professionalism in intricately plotted yet simple-seeming dance … Bluebird No. 173 drew cheers from the audience."
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

Heartchunks
This provocative piece explores the passions of the human heart. It is punctuated by love-struck cartwheels and heart-stabbing gestures that surround the centerpiece, a romantic pas de deux. Heartchunks is set to a musical collage of Chopin, Chris Isaak’s Two Hearts, Michael Convertino’s It’s a Big Planet, and Los Tres Ases’s Sabra Dios and Queseas Feliz.

"Myer makes everything extreme, from the walk on tiptoe to the heart-stabbing gestures to the Petrouchka-like turned-in feet and hands held almost as if crippled." Anna Myer’s work is full of high energy … Her choreography is passionate, sweaty and tense … A killer workout, both physically and emotionally."
-Christine Temin, The Boston Globe

In Italian
Set to Vivaldi, Bellini, Verdi, and Offenbach, this sumptuous piece juxtaposes the religious themes of crucifixion and stigmatization, found in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, with a contemporary, street-style pantomime of Italian conversational gestures.

"In Italian…succeeds as a pure dance piece as it zigzags between celebrating the joy of movement and celebrating the beauty of religious iconography….by its sheer spirit, moves you."
- Thea Singer, The Boston Globe

Quintet to Brahms
Based on elegant postures swung free, this full-length piece creates an emotional tumult that is as quixotic as the dancers’ 14-inch Russian tutus and their bare feet. The strength and musicality of Brahms resonate throughout.

"Hands pressed together like beaks arms become wings; legs squat and feet rise into birdlike walks and steps. Five dancers…hop twist and turn….all the while they maintain an amusing air of hot house cool."
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

Wine and Roses
Exploring the infinite nature of the human soul, Wine and Roses uses a combination of movement derived from ordinary activities such as driving a car and those improvised from the ritual forms of Tai Chi. The dancers explore fluidity, definitive shapes and flight through the air, while establishing the language of relationships that celebrate wholeness and the connections between us.

"Wine and Roses a Quintet danced to a witty instrumental amalgam of Bach, opera and a selfmocking English song, delicately and pleasurably juxtaposes circumscribed and space-gulping dance."
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times