Friday, May 8, 2020, 9:30-10:30 p.m.

"Dancing on the Shoulders of Giants" follows two internationally acclaimed dance companies who were commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival and the 2019 Commemoration to interpret a seminal event... the arrival of the first Africans in English North America. Britain's Richard Alston Dance Company, led by the legendary Sir Richard Alston, looks at these events through a European lens and incorporates a 1619 composition by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, the same year as the landing of the Africans.  The dance "Arrival" is a powerful collaboration between Alston, his dancers and high school students from Norfolk's Governor's School for the Arts. Meanwhile, "Passage" is an original work from Dance Theatre Harlem, the first African American classical ballet company. Together, these works express the fortitude of the human spirit and celebrate the invincible spark within that must prevail.

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