Rites Of Spring Will Include A Face Familiar To Newtown Residents

WESTON — Weston’s Town Hall Green will be returned to the dancing sprites on Sunday, May 18, when the Eighteenth Annual Rites of Spring Dance Festival will be presented at 3 pm.

The festival, a staple of the local arts scene since 1991, showcases the work of Margaret Bisceglie’s local Young People’s Creative Dance Group, and each year dance artists from other genres are invited to display their talents.

With support from local contributors, this year’s festival will feature the Nancy Meehan Dance Company, now in its 37th season. Attendees will have a rare chance to see the work of an artist that Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times has called “one of the major and most serious talents in modern dance,” with choreography she as “fiercely original among various trends in modern dance today. More than any other dance works, hers are easier to sense than to explain.”

The New York City-based company will present From All Sides, Parts I & III  (2006, 2008).  Original scores for this performance were composed and performed by Eleanor Hovda, and the costumes were designed by painter and architect Anthony Candido.

The dancers are Elizabeth Cahn, Deborah Karp, JM Leary, Frances Rosario-Puleo, Corinne Sarian, Erin Sylvester, and former Weston resident and Young People’s Creative Dance Group graduate Kate Taylor. Ms Taylor, a Newtown High School graduate (1994), now divides her time between Newtown and New York City, where she performs regularly with the highly regarded modern dance company.

Audience members are invited to bring blankets and chairs for seating. Town Hall is at 56 Norfield Road. There is no admission charge. Rain location is Weston Intermediate School, 95 School Road.