The Grossman Collection

**Solos/Duets/Trios/Quartets**

Higher (1975)

Music by Ray Charles

Length: 15 minutes

Number of Dancers: 2

"...slipping and slithering up, down or through the rungs with hardly any visible support,

so that it seems levitation as much as acrobatics…An astonishing work and a tremendous

hit.”

- John Percival, Dance and Dancers Magazine

Triptych (1976)

Music by Daruius Milhaud

Length: 8 minutes

Number of Dancers: 3

"Triptych features three dancers dressed up as desolate street people.  It displays the

kind of motion that makes the air quiver, motion that makes a hush around itself.  A beautiful

and touching dance, it is a power in sustained movement...Grossman has choreographed a harrowingly beautiful study in desolation."

- Frida Crisp, Spectator

Inching (1976)

Music by Dumisani Abraham Maraire

Length: 7 minutes

Number of Dancers: 2

"Caterpillar-like, the two dancers ooze inexorably towards each other and then inch by

inch unfold the intricacies of an inventive pas de deux."

- Robert A. Fredericks, Morning Union (Beckett, Massachusetts)

Bella (1977)

Music by Giacomo Puccini

Length: 15 minutes

Number of Dancers: 2

“Bella is a small gem in which two lovers fly, swing, slide and hang from a flowered horse. 

Their interactions are tender, humourous and sexual.  The come-hither/go-away sexuality

with its astonished stares and suddenly stiffened postures, is pure Grossman at its best.”

- Alina Gildiner, The Globe and Mail

Trio from Ecce Homo (Behold The Man) (1977)

Music by J. S. Bach

Length: 8 minutes

Number of Dancers: 3

"Ecce Homo, to music by J.S. Bach, is a work of almost devastating beauty. Inspired by paintings and sculptures of the passion of Christ, Grossman has given paint and marble

the warmth and movement of flesh. It is a work that fills the eye and the spirit."

- Christoper Dafoe, Vancouver Sun

Curious Schools of Theatrical Dancing: Part 1 (1977)

Music by François Couperin

Length: 10 minutes

Number of Dancers: 1

“[Mr. Grossman’s] solo for himself to Couperin music, called “Curious Schools of Theatrical Dancing: Part 1” and obviously taken from Gregorio Lambranzi’s famous 18th century

textbook on Venetian dance and department, revealed a vivid flair for grotesquerie, as

sharply observed as a Callot etching.”

- Clive Barnes, The New York Times

Magneto Dynamo (1985)

Music by Charles Mingus

Length: 6 minutes

Number of Dancers: 4

"(the dancers) transform themselves into human pinballs set berserk in the game of life....

this is a tough, athletic piece, gutsy and satiric"

- Gary Smith, The Hamilton Spectator

National Spirit (1976)

Music by John Philip Sousa (Anthems and Marches)

Length: 12 minutes

Number of Dancers: 8

"National Spirit finds a sqaud of gung-ho guys and gals in stars and stripes making like a

phys-ed. class to patriotic songs and anthems. It offers push-ups and headstands to the

Star Spangled Banner, criss-crossed marching to the American Patrol and a total collapse

to America the Beautiful. Danny Grossman knows his target, takes straight aim and once having delivered his shot, retires quickly from the field."

- William Littler, The Toronto Star

Nobody's Business (1981)

Music by Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers,

Joe Turner with the Trumpet All Stars

Length: 14 minutes

Number of Dancers: 8

“Gender bending with a message…that sexual orientation and expression are ‘Nobody’s Business’.”

- The Vancouver Sun

Endangered Species (1981)

Music: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

For 52 strings Krysztof Penderecki

Length: 10 minutes

Number of Dancers: 9

"...has a grisly, post-apocalyptic mood that lingers in the mind long after the performance. 

The images are striking - the jack booted authority with a blood-red flag, the mindless cowering masses following, and those left with a remnant of humanity clinging desperately

to one another like terrified monkeys.  It's a nightmare that still has the power to wake us

out of our sleepy complacency about freedom. 

- Pamela Anthony, The Edmonton Journal

La Valse (1987)

Music by Maurice Ravel

Length: 11 minutes

Number of Dancers: 11

"...an hypnotic, decadent and thought-provoking deconstruction of ballroom dancing, which says volumes about vertical expressions of horizontal desires, all set to the music of Ravel."

- John Coulbourn, The Toronto Sun

Hear the Lambs A Cryin' (1997)

Music by Paul Robeson (Negro Spirituals)

Length: 20 minutes

Number of Dancers: 7

"a brilliant metaphor for the suffering and oppression of physical and emotional bondage."

- The Hamilton Spectator

Parade of the Spirits (2005)

Music by Ann Southam

Length: 8 minutes

Number of Dancers: 8

"In 2004, I was commissioned by  New York State Summer School for the Arts and

American Dance Legacy Institute, to create an Etude for their students.  I decided to

deal with the sacred and profane prevalent in much of my works.  Originally intended as a

study tool, it became a dance entitled Parade of the Spirits."

- Danny Grossman

The Human Family (2006)

Music by Schubert

Length: 25 minutes

Number of Dancers: 34

"I first began working on The Human Family, in 2005, in honour of the 60th anniversary

of the liberation of Auschwitz.  I began by creating two sections of it on Etobicoke School

of the Arts for their Spring Gala A Tribute to Danny Grossman.  The students of Lester B. Pearson Pefroming Arts School in London, Ontario, performed them in September 2005 for Holocaust Awareness Week."

- Danny Grossman

Request for Information

For licensing and teaching information, please contact:

Danny Grossman Dance Company

157 Carlton Street, Suite 202

Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2K3

Tel: 416-408-4543

Email: niki@dannygrossman.com