Dear Ms. Cardwell:
Thank you and the IBMA Foundation for the project grant to support Chamber Dance Project and our collaboration with the North Carolina-based string/bluegrass band, the Red Clay Ramblers. We greatly appreciate this first-time award and recognition of our efforts to combine live music and dance. It helped afford us the opportunity to bring the entire band in for the season. We are excited to announce that the Red Clay Ramblers plan to return to perform the same repertoire with us in June 2026!
The IBMA Foundation awarded Chamber Dance a project grant to support our collaboration with the Tony Award-winning Red Clay Ramblers band in 2024. The band joined Chamber Dance Project for our “Ramblin’” season at the prestigious Harman Hall of Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. on June 27-29, 2024.
We reached an audience of nearly 1,000 – an increase of 10% over 2023. The IBMA Foundation’s support and additional marketing efforts to the bluegrass music community (including WAMU Bluegrass Country Radio) helped us reach new audiences and bluegrass music fans. At each performance, we had audience members there to see the Red Clay Ramblers band – some of whom told us they had not had the chance to see the band live in over 20 years. We further engaged audiences during our onstage workshop after the matinee when 50 audience members (of all ages) joined the dancers and musicians onstage to learn choreography from Ramblin’ Suite.
The Red Clay Ramblers performed live onstage with our distinguished quartet and powerfully exquisite dancers in the ballets Ramblin’ Suite and Book of Stones. The title work, Ramblin’ Suite, choreographed by Artistic Director Diane Coburn Bruning (2001), was a company and D.C. premiere, and a reprise of the work for the band. It received a standing ovation and multiple curtain calls for each of our four performances. The performances featured a unique collaboration between the band and our string quartet. Book of Stones was a world premiere, choreographed by Christian Denice, featuring the cinematic and atmospheric side of the band’s work heard in many Sam Shepard plays of the past. It opened with the Swedish herding call, kulning, and original music by the Red Clay Ramblers. Ramblin’ Suite received standing ovations at each performance.
Steve Sucato in his review in Arts Air said, “This season’s standout work [Book of Stones] combined theatrical lighting and production elements with lush contemporary dance choreography. It was set to brilliant, original, atmospheric music by the Red Clay Ramblers’ Jack Herrick and Bland Simpson.” Ramblin’ Suite capped a perfect evening of dance and music.
The grant funds from the IBMA Foundation were used to help support the Red Clay Ramblers band fees. We are committed to presenting live music and dance and appreciate funding to help make this possible. The program was such a hit, that we are planning to bring the band back in both works in 2026. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Diane Coburn Bruning,
Artistic Director, Chamber Dance Project
RETURN to the October 2024 issue of The Cornerstone.
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