Cyrus Art Production Performs for Community
View Video and Photos of Master Class

Blair Academy’s Bartow Mainstage Series presented a performance by Cyrus Art Production on April 9 in the DuBois Theatre of Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts. The company was in residence at Blair from April 7-9. In addition to a full performance for the Blair community, the troupe offered a master class to Blair dance students – accompanied by two of the group’s violinists and Blair’s own drummer Saul Sparber ’10 – in the School’s new field house. Blair dance teacher Clarissa Newby Phillips and the company’s founder, Duane Cyrus, are long-time colleagues. Click here to view a brief video of that class by Bill Adams of The Express-Times.

Cyrus Art Production presents dance and theater through unique and thought-provoking cultural events. With high production standards and an interdisciplinary approach to performance and presentation, the organization develops projects, performances and art works designed to stimulate the mind with beauty and intelligence. Born from the founder’s vision to test the boundaries of dance presentation, Cyrus Art Production has evolved into an organization that brings together various artistic disciplines including dance, music, drama, video, photography and graphic art to create an experience that is accessible, intellectually engaging and entertaining.

Duane Cyrus is the artistic director of Cyrus Art Productions and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Cyrus holds an MFA from the University of Illinois where he was a Dewson Fellow and a BFA from the Juilliard School, which he attended on scholarship from the Aaron Diamond Foundation. He has traveled around the world as a director, choreographer, performer and teacher. He is also the author and editor of the book Vital Grace, a photographic essay published by Edition Stemmle featuring male dancers of color and interviews with Gregory Hines, Bill T. Jones and Evander Holyfield. This work has also been published as a poster and 1999 calendar by Pomegranate entitled Dancing a Dream. As an independent artist, Cyrus directs, teaches and choreographs extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia. He has also produced and performed in his own solo concerts (The Black Male and Dancing a Dream) performing at the Studio Moliere (Vienna), E-Werk (Frieberg), Aster Plaza (Hiroshima) and Carl Orff Saal (Munich) among others cities.

The Bartow Series, funded from an endowment, was set up in memory of Nevett Bartow. Nevett was a student and later a music instructor and choral director at Blair in the 1960s and early 70s. He died in 1973 from leukemia at the age of 39, leaving a remarkable legacy both in his music and in the memories and affections of his students and friends. The goal of the Bartow Series is to bring a broad range of performing arts to the Blair community at large, thereby heightening its appreciation for all forms of art.

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Updated 4/11/09

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