News   Auditions   Performances   Education   Bay Area   Miscellaneous   E-Mail

 BayDance.com A Ballet and Modern Dance Information Resource

Who's dancing what, when and where around
San Francisco Bay

Press Release from Richard MacDonald Galleries

ARTIST ROBERT HEINDEL RETURNS FROM LONDON TO
PREMIER NEW WORKS IN SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO - January 12, 2001 – Richard MacDonald Galleries, 445-A Sutter Street, proudly presents an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and limited edition serigraphs by renowned American artist Robert Heindel. After continually receiving immense recognition in the United States, Europe and Japan for his unparalleled dramatic, sensitive renderings of dancers, Mr. Heindel returns to the Bay Area after a two-year hiatus. The exhibition, which opens February 15 and continues through March 15, will highlight Heindel’s new series representing dancers from the ballet ‘The Protecting Veil,’ choreographed by David Bintley, Artistic Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

With additional works featuring dancers from the production ‘Power,’ choreographed by Stanton Welch and Toru Shimazaki’s ‘Junction.’

Heindel’s representations of the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s performance of ‘The Protecting Veil, ’ a series that Heindel first exhibited in London, 1999 - is a ballet set to John Tavener’s evocative score for the solo cello and strings. The foundation of the work represents the life of the Virgin Mary, where dancers portray the Virgin in different sections of the score. The literal use of a muslin veil and the dramatic image of cloth, color and costume in the ballet was the basis for some of Heindel’s finest renderings and paintings to date.

Heindel’s next solo exhibition is scheduled for April 3, 2001. Featuring drawings and paintings based on The H. Art Chaos Japanese Dance Company, the exhibition will be held at the Mitsukushi Gallery in Tokyo.

In the fall of 2000, Heindel was invited to observe the Rambert Dance Company where he worked with Artistic Director and choreographer, Christopher Bruce for the London premiere of ‘Moonshine’ with music by Bob Dylan, taken from the ‘The Bootleg Series Volume I.’

In 1994 ‘The Dance House,’ a contemporary, dramatic ballet, choreographed by David Bintley, which presents the subject of AIDS, with the ‘dance house’ functioning as a metaphor for the grave, premiered during the San Francisco Ballet’s ‘94/95 season. Heindel was commissioned to collaborate with Mr. Bintley on the set designs and costumes, which enhanced the intense emotion and expressive energy of the production.

Resulting from his acute observations of dance rehearsals, Heindel’s work is minimal in composition, possessing a fluid, almost unfinished quality that emphasizes their expression as movement and atmosphere. Heindel remarks, "Dancers have perfect bodies, capable of attaining extraordinary physical heights, I find them fascinating. Stage performance is secondary for me when compared to the rigors and genuine emotion I see in rehearsal."

Heindel has long devoted his artistic expression to creating images of dancers from the world’s greatest ballet companies, namely The Royal Ballet of London, The English National Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Monte Carlo Ballet, The Japanese Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, et al. His artwork is represented in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery in London, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to name just a few. Heindel’s collectors include: George Lucas, Sarah Brightman, Princess Caroline of Monaco, the late Princess of Wales, and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, who personally invited Heindel to work with his original casts of ‘Cats’ (London) and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (London) in 1987.

*Robert Heindel will be the guest of honor at a reception on February 24, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. For more information, please call the gallery @ 415-263-5490 Gallery hours: Sunday & Monday, 10am – 6pm; Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday, 10am – 8pm; and Friday & Saturday, 10am – 9pm.

 

January     February     March     April     May     June     July
August     September     October     November     December

Send your additions, corrections and comments to BayDance.

Background photo © 1999 Michael W. Phelan

Michael W. Phelan, michael@baydance.co