as long as there is in me

Presented by ISHIDA Dance Company

ISHIDA Dance’s much-anticipated winter program “as long as there is in me” features exceptional dancers from across Europe and North America. The program includes the haunting world premiere soul-writer by ISHIDA which follows a woman in a dreamscape where she briefly inhabits the past lives of a beloved wife, a sister, and a mother. Also on the program is the US premiere Waltz by choreographer, actor, and former dancer with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and Ballet Vlaanderen Drew Jacoby and the world premiere It’s Happening Now by esteemed Italian choreographer Mauro Astolfi, Artistic Director of Spellbound in Rome. The evening promises to be a unique opportunity to see critically acclaimed choreography from Europe and the US.

About ISHIDA Dance Company

ISHIDA is a renown contemporary dance company based in Houston and Austin, Texas, and the only company in the US to be nationally recognized in Dance Magazine’s prestigious “25 to Watch” list for 2023. ISHIDA features world-class dancers from many of the top companies in the world (Houston Ballet, Ballet BC, Netherlands Dance Theater, GöteborgsOperan, Gärtnerplatz, Les Ballets Jazz Montreal, Ballet Vlaanderen, Theater Basel, Spellbound). ISHIDA blends contemporary dance with theatrical elements while retaining the physicality and beauty of the human form from traditional ballet. ISHIDA presents unique poetic narratives relevant to a modern audience that invite existential questions. The work explores archetypal patterns and themes of our psyche such as betrayal, belonging, love and loss, to encourage kindness towards ourselves that extends to others.

About Artistic Director Brett Ishida

Brett Ishida is Japanese American and grew up on a citrus farm in California’s Central Valley. Her love for dance inspired her to move away from home at age fifteen when she received a full scholarship to Kirov Academy and later to School of American Ballet in NYC. She danced with Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, where she first choreographed, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens performing works by celebrated choreographers George Balanchine, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Jirí Kylián, and Ohad Naharin, among others. She later graduated from UCLA earning a BA in Literature with emphasis in Poetry. She felt by combining these two worlds from her past, she could become a new voice in contemporary dance and started her own company, ISHIDA, captivating audiences in Houston and Austin.

From the onset, ISHIDA’s work has been critically acclaimed: Broadway World described her work as “stunning and compelling…an incredible boon to the Houston art scene.” The Washington Post’s Pulitzer-prize winning dance critic Sarah L. Kaufman deemed Ishida’s piece home-coming which “tackled a deeply poignant, poetic theme” to be “remarkable.” ISHIDA’s work was presented at the 10,000 Dreams festival at The Kennedy Center last June featuring works by top Asian Choreographers in the world; Ballet Herald reviewed ISHIDA’s work as “the most memorable and effective piece in this program.” In December 2024, ISHIDA premieres a new creation for Houston Ballet’s Margaret Alkek Williams Jubilee of Dance.

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