Doug Varone and Dancers proudly received a National Dance Project (NDP) Touring Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) which will support the company's United States tours of in the shelter of the fold during the eighteen-month tour period of June 1, 2017 – November 30, 2018. Doug Varone and Dancers was one of eight companies selected from a highly competitive pool of 55 U.S. and international applicants. A publication of the winning Touring Award projects will be available in January 2017, each with its own tour coordinator. NEFA’s National Dance Project is widely recognized as one of the country’s major sources of funding for the creation and touring of dance.

“This group of projects has unique breadth. Artists are working in forms including vertical dance, Kathak, contemporary dance theater, Maya dance, and more, and these grants will enable presenters to bring high caliber dance to their communities with NDP support,” - Cathy Edwards, NEFA executive director.

PREMIERE: IN THE SHELTER OF THE FOLD

Choreography by Doug Varone

Music by Julia Wolfe, Lesley Flanigan, Geoff Gersh, Raz Mesinai, Kevin Keller, Glenn Kotche

Faith and belief take many forms, as do the acts of coping, questioning, and the expectations attached to it. Within this intensely intimate work, we explore the physicality of fulfillment and disappointment, and the tension between the comfort one finds in community and the stifling pressure to conform. in the shelter of the fold is comprised of a cycle of six imagistic dances that can be shown as stand-alone works or as an interrelated episodic event. The dance’s score comprises works by six of the most innovative 21st century composers working today.

ABOUT NDP
NEFA’s National Dance Project (NDP) supports the creation and touring of new dance works in the United States. Since 1996, the program has distributed more than $33 million in funding to support the dance field in ways that enhance partnerships between artists and presenters with the equally important goals of engaging and expanding audiences for dance. To date, NDP has supported 351 artists to create and tour 646 dance works at 787 cultural organizations across all 50 states, Washington, DC,  reaching over 2.7 million audience members.

NEFA's National Dance Project is supported with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and funding for special initiatives from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French American Cultural Exchange, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.