GPAC presents Diavolo Dance Theatre on Friday, March 2 at 8 p.m. Under the guidance of artistic director and founder Jacques Heim, Diavolo performers collaboratively develop work on oversized surrealistic sets and structures. Everyday items...doors, chairs, stairways, provide the backdrop for dramatic movement - leaping, flying, twirling - to create metaphors for the challenge of relationships, the absurdities of life, and the struggle to maintain our humanity in the shadow of a technological world.

"Elegance, power, beauty with the thrill of danger, a special way of dancing..." - Hannoversche Allgemeine, Germany

"Heim puts his feel for props, his knack for kinetic drama, and his taste for danger in the service of a metaphor, and the result is dazzling." - New York, Newsday

WHO:            Diavolo Dance Theater

WHEN:          Friday, March 2, 8 p.m.

TICKETS:     Single tickets are $25, $30, $35, plus handling fee. Box Office Hours: Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and noon the day of performance. All major credit cards accepted. Call (901) 751-7500 or buy online at www.GPACweb.com.

WHERE:         Germantown Performing Arts Centre
                       1801 Exeter Road
                       Germantown, TN 38138

CONTACT:    For more information or to arrange an interview with the artist(s), please contact Anne Trebil at (901) 751-7501 or anne@gpacweb.com.

WEB: http://www.diavolo.org/

Diavolo Dance Theater

Diavolo company members are dancers, gymnasts, actors, athletes and above all; teammates. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Jacques Heim, they collaboratively develop work on oversized surrealistic sets and everyday structures.   Heim's childhood struggles and his journeys as a French-Jewish man have shaped his thematic choices within the urban landscapes.  Themes of isolation, fear, destiny, survival, faith, modernization, destination and danger help to illustrate the effect of our surroundings on our daily lives.  The structural elements and surrealistic set pieces of Diavolo create a sense of daring and risk taking through dramatic movement that juxtaposes human fragility and survival.  Only through working together with the elements of danger created by and on architectural environments does Diavolo accomplish its metaphors of the challenges of relationships, the obsurdities of life and the struggle to maintain our humanity in the shadow of an increasingly technological world.

Jacques Heim founded Diavolo in Los Angeles in 1992. In 1995 Diavolo made its European debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they were named "Best of the Fest" by the London Independent and Critic's Choice by The Guardian. The company was honored to perform live at the 10th annual American Choreography Awards in 2004. In 1998, the company opened the performance series at the new Getty Center Museum in Los Angeles and 1999 saw the creation of Diavolo's first full-evening length work: Catapult which also coincided with Diavolo's first full North American tour. During the summer of 2001, Diavolo invited Jelon Viera, artistic director of DanceBrazil and the Capoeria Foundation, to Los Angeles to conduct an intensive Capoeria workshop with the company. In spring 2002, Diavolo created a second smaller company to perform in a cabaret-style show, which ran for eight weeks at the New Shinagawa Prince Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. The commercial arm of the company, Diavolo Creative Productions, has also created unique performance events for such corporate clients as Wells Fargo Bank, Honda, Sebastian Inc. and General Motors. Due to the unusual and innovative way that Diavolo works with architectural structures, the creative team at Cirque du Soleil was inspired to hire Jacques Heim to choreograph a show in Las Vegas, entitled "Ka", which opened in February of 2005 and is still running. In 2007, Diavolo was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to create a performance to Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen"s Foreign Bodies and is now working on a second commission for them to be based on John Adams' "Fearful Symmetries," to premiere at the Hollywood Bowl in September of 2010. The LA Times declared its premiere at The Hollywood Bowl one of those rare events that define the art of this city when the levels of vision and support are equally exceptional.  The 2010-11 season marks Diavolo's twelth U.S. tour. In addition, Diavolo has performed internationally in Scotland, Japan, Chile, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Brazil, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Germany and Austria. 

Jacques Heim
Artistic Director

Jacques Heim, a Jewish-French born in Paris, earned a BFA in Theatre, Dance and Film from Middlebury College. He was awarded a Certificate for Analysis and Criticism of Dance from the University of Surrey in England. Heim moved to Los Angeles in 1989 and attended California Institute for the Arts, receiving an MFA in Choreography. In 1992, Heim founded Diavolo Dance Theater. Heim received the 1992 Martha Hill Choreography Award by the American Dance Festival, and the 1992 Special Prize of the Jury at the 6th Saitama International Dance Festival in Saitama, Japan. Heim was nominated for the CalArts/Alpert Awards in the Arts for Dance in 1996, 2000, 2009 and again in 2010. In 1999, Heim received a James Irvine Foundation Fellowship in choreography, and a Fellowship from the Brody Arts Fund. In the summer of 2001, Heim was one of three choreographers chosen to create a piece for the Ballet Pacifica Annual Choreographic Workshop. He has been named one of the "Faces to Watch in the Arts" by the LA Times and one of the "100 Coolest People in LA" by Buzz Magazine. From 1993-2001 he taught Intensive Movement for Actors at UCLA, and Cal State LA. Heim was the Artistic Director for the 2005 Taurus Stunt Awards and returned in 2007 to stage a movement/stunt piece; The Car. In 2002-2004, Heim choreographed the long-running KA, a permanent show for Cirque du Soleil, which premiered in April of 2004 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.  In 2006, Jacques created choreography for The Stones, a theatre piece produced by Center Theatre Group at the Douglas Theater. In September 2007 he choreographed "Foreign Bodies," based on a score by Esa-Pekka Salonen for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He has recently worked in television on BBC America's "Dancing with the Stars," and Bravo's "Step Up and Dance" and has been invited to be a Creative Director for the Opening Ceremony of The 16th Asian Games, in Guangzhou, China. Jacques is now working on a second commission for the LA Phil based on John Adams" "Fearful Symmetries."

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