CDI/Concert Dance Inc. (CDI) returns to the Ravinia Festival as part of the annual Ruth Page Festival of Dance Saturday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 2 at 4 p.m. in Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall, 418 Sheridan Rd. Gates open on Saturday, June 1 at 4 p.m. and Sunday, June 2 at 3 p.m. Regularly commissioned by Ravinia to present new works, CDI Artistic Director Venetia Stifler’s 2019 program will include Colandd’s El Salón México in Berstein’s two-piano arrangement. Public ticket sales begin May 7, 2019. Reserved seating tickets will be available to purchase for $12 online at www.ravinia.org or via phone by calling 847.266.5100. No lawn seating will be available. For more information on CDI and the Ruth Page Festival of Dance, please visit www.ruthpage.org and www.concertdance.org.
Ruth Page first began her association with Ravinia in 1926 and today the Ruth Page Festival of Dance continues her legacy and dedication to dance, new ideas and breathtaking performances. An annual favorite with sold-out performances, CDI opens the Ruth Page Festival of Dance and the 2019 Ravinia Season.
Highlighting the 2019 program is the world premiere of CDI Artistic Director Venetia Stifler's "Dances With Words and Music" in sponsorship with The Poetry Foundation. Inspired by an early work of Ruth Page which celebrates poetry through dance, "Dances With Words and Music" blends contemporary dance with the works of Langston Hughes, E.E. Cummings, Federico García Lorca and Dorothy Parker within a multi-media environment of live musical accompaniment and animations created by visual artists Kelli Evans and Frank Vodvarka.
Regularly commissioned by Ravinia to present new works, "El Salon" premiered in 2010 in observance of the 20th anniversary of the deaths of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, as well as the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence. Venetia Stifler’s setting of Copland’s wildly infectious El Salón México is presented in a special two-piano arrangement made by Bernstein and features Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman and pianist James Morehead.
