March 21-31, 2025
ByCHANCE
ByCHANCE is offered as a Digital Replay from March 21-31, 2025. Tune in at your convenience, as many times as you like, during that window, from the comfort of home.
This world premiere ballet, choreographed by Jennifer Archibald, debuted as part of Dance Series 1 in Fall 2024. Jennifer was recently featured as the cover story in Dance Magazine.
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Rachel Howard said of ByCHANCE:
“Set to an eclectic, rhythmically driven score by the Italian composer and pianist Ezio Bosso and others, the 25-minute work featured a sequence of muscular pas de deux that grew into larger, kinetic ensembles. Darting into and away from each other, the dancers traded bolting bursts of energy, arms thrust up at a decisive angle, or played out a simple, playfully childlike hand ballet against the upstage wall. Michael Oesch’s silhouette lighting enhanced that effect.
Antsy one moment and serene the next — the women suddenly fluttering by on pointe — the eight dancers embodied the random encounters and clarifying serendipity the title suggests. In one recurring motif, pairs came together to wonder at each others’ bodies, one dancer gently probing the ankles or shoulders of another as if to reassure themselves they are not a mirage. Another touching move came in the way a dancer poked his or her head through the open arms of a partner, as if to thread them together. The breastplate contours of Susan Roemer’s costumes added a sleek, clean line to the proceedings.
ByCHANCE closed with an enchanting duet performed by Ricardo Dyer and Terez Dean Orr. In their mutually yielding and supportive moves, an air of inevitability banished whatever fleeting, arbitrary connections had come before.”
Go behind the scenes with choreographer Jennifer Archibald in the video below.
Toronto-born JENNIFER ARCHIBALD is the founder and Artistic Director of the Arch Dance Company and Program Director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives. Archibald has choreographed for the Ailey II, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet West, Grand Rapids Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, and BalletX among others. She has worked commercially for NIKE, MAC Cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger, as well as chart-listed artists. She will return to the Crypto Arena to choreograph the opening for KCON’s annual conference.
She was appointed as the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history. Jennifer has been commissioned by BalletMet, Grand Rapids Ballet, BalletX, the Washington Ballet, Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre and the Kennedy Centre’s Pathways to Performance program to deliver new works in 2025. Ms. Archibald was the acting Movement Director for Michael Kahn’s The Oresteia at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Her directorial debut WeAight was named the Official Selection of the 2022 Dance on Camera Festival. She creates a “Documentary Ballet” format, in which she creates works rooted in historical history bringing communities together. Her documentary ballets are theatrical engagements that evolve beyond the stage and rely on historical education as an integral part of the creative process. Her projects in this space include – Breakin’Bricks which honors the community of Black Wall Street produced by Tulsa Ballet; Sounds of the Sun which honors the life of dancer Florence Waren exploring her experience during the holocaust produced by the Pittsburgh Ballet and Seven, a biographical work about Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee commissioned by MADCO Dance Company.
Archibald’s works have been performed at venues including Aaron Davis Hall, Central Park’s Summerstage Mainstage, Jacob’s Pillow Inside|Out Stage, Lincoln Center, New York’s City Center, and The Kennedy Center. She was awarded a Choreographic Fellow for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab under the direction of Robert Battle and is a Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Choreographic Competition recipient. Her commissioned work “DIRT ” was presented at TED TALK by St. Louis-based MADCO Dance Company. Arch Dance Company’s Chasing Shadows, was remounted for Dallas Black Dance Theater’s 2018/19 season. Archibald was also the 2018-19 recipient of the City of New York Dance Initiative.
She is currently an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama and was appointed as a Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the Hip Hop dance curriculum at Columbia/Barnard College. Jennifer is also a guest artist at several universities including Boston Conservatory, Columbia College Chicago, Fordham/Ailey, Goucher College, Miami New World School of the Arts, Purchase College, Point Park, Princeton, South Carolina’s Governor’s School of the Arts, University of South Florida, Oklahoma University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a returning guest choreographer for the School at Jacob’s Pillow. www.