Aszure Barton
Encyclopedia
Career
Barton was raised in Canada where she studied dance from a young age. After training at the Edmonton School of Ballet, Alberta School of BalletAlberta Ballet Company
The Alberta Ballet is located in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. It is Canada’s third largest dance company. Alberta Ballet has developed a distinctive repertoire and performance quality that has brought it to the forefront of national and international stages.- Creation :The Alberta Ballet was...
, John Cranko Schule in Germany and Royal Winnipeg Ballet
Royal Winnipeg Ballet
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is Canada's oldest ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America....
she left home at age fourteen to study at the National Ballet School in Toronto. After graduating from the school she joined its resident company, the National Ballet of Canada
National Ballet of Canada
The National Ballet of Canada is Canada's largest ballet troupe. It was founded by Celia Franca in 1951 and is based in Toronto, Ontario. Based upon the unity of Canadian trained dancers in the tradition and style of England's Royal Ballet, The National is regarded as one of the premier classical...
and later danced with Montreal’s [bjm_danse] (formerly Ballets Jazz de Montréal). In 2002 she formed her company Aszure and Artists. She has gone on to choreograph new works for Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
, National Ballet of Canada, The Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is an American dance company based in Chicago. HSDC performs in downtown Chicago and its metropolitan area and tours nationally and internationally throughout the year....
and The Martha Graham Dance Company. She became the first choreographer at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2005. In 2006 she choreographed the Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
.
Barton continues to work with her New York based company and is currently an artist in residence at The Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Choreography
In its review of a 2011 performance, The Buffalo NewsThe Buffalo News
The Buffalo News is the primary newspaper of the Buffalo – Niagara Falls metropolitan area, and the area's only daily newspaper. It is the only newspaper owned by Berkshire Hathaway.-History:...
says that Barton and her company "let flow wave after wave of idiosyncratic movement that vacillated from elegantly graceful to stylized clowning and the outright bizarre."