Thursday, February 19 at 6:00 PM
Don't miss this special evening highlighting the upcoming retrospective celebrating Matthew Neenan, BalletX co-founder and "one of America's best dance poets." Matthew will be in conversation with rehearsal director Keelan Whitmore, and BalletX dancers will treat us to a few passages from the performance. Light refreshments will follow the program.
PAY WHAT YOU WISH. (Please add an amount when you check out. $20 suggested ticket price.) Advance registration required.
Matthew Neenan began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School and with noted teachers Nan C. Keating and Jacqueline Cronsberg. He later attended the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet in New York. From 1994-2007, Matthew danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet where he danced numerous principal roles in the classical, contemporary and Balanchine repertoire. From 2007-2020, Matthew was named Choreographer in Residence at the Pennsylvania Ballet where he created 20 ballets.
Matthew’s choreography has been featured and performed by The New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Ballet West, Ballet Met, Colorado Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Milwaukee Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, OKC Ballet, Kansas City Ballet , BODYTRAFFIC, Juilliard Dance, USC Kaufman School of Dance, among many others. He has received numerous awards and grants for his choreography from the National Endowment of the Arts, Dance Advance funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Choo San Goh Foundation, and the Independence Foundation. In 2006, Matthew received the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute’s Fellowship Initiative Award. In 2008, he received a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. This marks his fourth time receiving the PCA fellowship. He was also the first recipient of the Jerome Robbins NEW Program Fellowship for his work At the border for Pennsylvania Ballet. In June 2019, he directed the Contemporary Ballet Program at Jacob’s Pillow
In 2005, Matthew co-founded BalletX with fellow dancer Christine Cox. BalletX had its world premiere at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September 2005 and is now the resident dance company at the prestigious Wilma Theatre. BalletX has toured and performed Neenan’s choreography in New York City at The Joyce Theater, NY City Center, The Skirball Center, Symphony Space and Central Park Summerstage, Vail International Dance Festival (where he has had 5 world premieres), Jacob’s Pillow Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Cerritos Center, Laguna Dance Festival, Spring to Dance Festival in St.Louis, and internationally in Cali, Colombia, Seoul, Korea and Belgrade, Serbia. His ballet The Last Glass was the New York Times top 10 in 2013.
Keelan Whitmore is a native of Rockford, Illinois, and received his training at Rockford Dance Company and Joffrey Ballet School/New School University. He also graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and St. Mary’s College L.E.A.P. Program, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Dance Performance and was awarded the Dean’s Professional Student Award.
As a member of Kansas City Ballet from 2001 to 2006, Whitmore danced works by choreographers such as George Balanchine, Nacho Duato, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. In 2006, Whitmore became a member of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, with whom he performed at the Kennedy Center and traveled to the Edinburgh International Dance Festival. Whitmore has worked as a choreographer and dance educator for many years. His work has been featured in performances by Schauspiel Dortmund, TanzTheater Münster, Junges Theater Münster, Kansas City Ballet, Open Space Dance, LINES Ballet Educational Programs, Virginia School of the Arts, Austin Paey University, and Regional Dance America, which presented him in 2005 with the National Choreographic Recognition Award. In 2006, Whitmore co-founded the Kansas City-based multidisciplinary ensemble Quixotic Fusion. He danced with Alonzo King LINES Ballet from 2006 to 2013 and as a soloist with TanzTheater Münster under the direction of Hans Henning Paar from 2014 to 2021, where he was awarded in 2019 the Outstanding Artist Award by the Gesellschaft der Musik- und Theaterfreunde Münsters und des Münsterlandes e.V. For the 2022/2023 season, Whitmore returned to Theater Münster as a guest dancer and as Coordinator Community Outreach and Diversity with Lillian Stillwell.
This is a free event.
