World Premiere Bebe Miller Company Necessary Beauty

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious." —Albert Einstein

This quote by the famed physicist provides a touchstone for Necessary Beauty, Bebe Miller’s follow-up to her Bessie Award-winning and widely acclaimed Landing/Place. Conjuring the rhythms of action and memory as it plumbs the transformative potential within everyday encounters, cosmic revelations, and intimate details, Necessary Beauty aims to reveal the unexpected yet "necessary" artful moments of our lives.

Miller and her company are teaming with many of the same collaborators who contributed to Landing/Place's exquisite multimedia panorama, this time augmented by writer Ain Gordon who aids in shaping the text. Created with the support of a series of multiweek developmental residencies sponsored by the Wexner Center, Necessary Beauty debuts here before local audiences who have embraced Miller as one of the foremost creative forces in this city and in contemporary dance.

Continue reading for complete production credits. Production Credits and Company Acknowledgments

The creation of Necessary Beauty was supported through commissioning funds from the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois and by Jacob's Pillow through its Creative Development Residency Program.

Its production was made possible by the Doris Duke Fund for Dance of the National Dance Project, a program administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the MetLife Foundation; the Multi-Arts Production Fund, a program of Creative Capital Foundation supported by the Rockefeller Foundation; and with support from the Ohio State University's Arts and Humanities Innovation Grant Program, Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), the Department of Dance, and the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Necessary Beauty is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents in partnership with Bates Dance Festival and the National Performance Network. NPN, and the NPN Creation Fund, is sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Altria Group, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).

The National Performance Network is a group of cultural organizers and artists facilitating the practice and public experience of the performing arts in the United States. NPN serves artists, arts organizers, and a broad range of audiences and communities across the country through commissions, residencies, culture-centered community projects and other artistic activities. For more information: npnweb.org.

Additional support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Our thanks to Louise Guthman, Robert and Stephanie Carlisle, and an anonymous donor for their generous support of the production of Necessary Beauty. Reception desserts provided by Tasi café.

Thanks to the Friends of Bebe Miller Company for their individual contributions toward the development of Necessary Beauty. Special thanks to Chuck Helm, Bill Barto, Barbara Thatcher, and the Wexner Center's fabulous production staff; Karen Bell, Maria Palazzi, Susan Petry, Sean Hove, Julie Fox, Annie Kloppenberg, Colleen Leonardi, Yolanda Royster, and the staff of the ACCAD EMMA lab.