NYU Skirball will present the NYC premiere of Fantasque, an ebullient and magical pageant by Dance Heginbotham, created by choreographer John Heginbotham and puppeteer Amy Trompetter, for three performances, on Saturday, November 17 and Sunday, November 18, 2018.

Enormous and minute puppets, and human dancers join forces to create a fable of a battle of light and darkness, with a fantastical cast of characters featuring giant babies, blue angels, a devilish snare and heroic rats. Performed to live music composed by Ottorino Respighi and adapted from piano pieces by Giaochino Rossini, Fantasque ruminates on morality and immorality as seen through a child’s eyes in a series of connected vignettes bound by an unconventional and tender merging of puppetry and dance. The piece features dancers John Eirich, Lindsey Jones, Courtney Lopes, Mykel Nairne, Justin Dominic and Macy Sullivan.

John Heginbotham, a former member of Mark Morris Dance Group, founded Dance Heginbotham in 2011. The company has been presented and commissioned by prestigious venues including Bard College, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob’s Pillow, The Kennedy Center and The Joyce Theater, and has toured extensively in the U.S. and abroad. Heginbotham is the recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. danceheginbotham.org

Amy Trompetter creates giant puppet operas, outdoor pageants and hand puppet shows. She recently performed her “Punch & Judy-with-skirt-as-stage” in Taguatinga, Brazil, where she is co-founding a women’s world hand puppet festival. She recently collaborated on Truth, a retelling of the life of Sojourner Truth at Rosendale Theatre; on Requiem for Anna Politkovskaya with Moscow-based composer Alexander Bakshi; and directed and designed The Barber of Seville giant puppet opera in Austria and NYC. Amy was a touring member of Bread and Puppet Theater from 1968-86. She is the founder of Redwing Blackbird Theater, a puppet workshop & performance space, in Rosendale, NY. redwingblackbirdtheater.com

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Dance Heginbotham (DH) is a New York-based contemporary dance company committed to supporting, producing, and sustaining the work of choreographer John Heginbotham. With an emphasis on collaboration, DH engages with national and international communities with its unique blend of inventive, thoughtful, and rigorous dance theater works. Founded in 2011, DH has quickly established itself as one of the most adventurous and exciting new companies on the contemporary dance scene, and is celebrated for its vibrant athleticism, humor, and theatricality, as well as its commitment to collaboration. DH has been commissioned and presented by Arts Brookfield, Bard College, Baryshnikov Arts Center, BAM, Duke Performances, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Vail International Dance Festival, among others. Having recently finished its 5th Anniversary season, DH is currently developing a new site-specific evening-length work to the music of Tyondai Braxton in collaboration with Alarm Will Sound. www.danceheginbotham.org

Fantasque was commissioned by and developed in residence at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it received its world premiere at Bard SummerScape in July 2016. Fantasque was developed with the support of a 2016 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency at Brooklyn College.

Skirball Moves programming is generously supported by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

TICKETS Fantasque will play three performances: Saturday, November 17 at 3 and 7:30 pm, and Sunday, November 18 at 3 pm. Tickets begin at $20 and can be purchased online at www.nyuskirball.org, by phone at 212.998.4941, or in person at the Box Office, 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00–6:00 P.M. NYU Skirball is located at 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square, New York, New York 10012. www.nyuskirball.org

ABOUT NYU SKIRBALL NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City’s major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 800-seat theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators and thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance arts to comedy, music and film.

NYU Skirball’s unique partnership with New York University enables it to draw on the University’s intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates and journalists. www.nyuskirball.org.

Jay Wegman is the Director of NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Prior to Skirball, he served as Director of the Abrons Art Center for ten years. During his tenure, Abrons was awarded various honors, including a 2014 OBIE Award for Innovative Excellence and a 2015 Bessie Award for Best Production. He was also a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and for over a decade served as the first Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He is the recipient of the 2015 FRANKY award for “making a long-term, extraordinary impact on contemporary theatre and performance in New York City.” While not a performer, he has appeared in Brian Roger’s film “Screamers” (2018), Sibyl Kempson’s “12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens” (2017), and “Romper Room” (1969). Jay is a graduate of Yale University.

Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, M to West 4th St.; R & W to 8th Street; 6 to Astor Place.

Programs, artists and ticket prices are subject to change.