X DANCE
Artistic Director: Marlena Yannetti
- Thursday, February 14 8pm
- Friday, February 15 8pm
- Saturday, February 16 2pm ***Talkback following the performance***
- Saturday, February 16 8pm
Artistic Director Marlena Yannetti’s corps of Emerson dancers and choreographers will wow you with their dazzling young talent.
Meet the Artistic Director, Marlena Yannetti
Marlena Yannetti has been teaching dance at Emerson College for over 30 years. As Dancer-in-Residence, her responsibilities include teaching dance composition, ballet, jazz, and serving as artistic director for Emerson Stage’s X-Dance playing February 14-16 in the Greene Theater. Ms. Yannetti has had a long and fascinating career in dance and musical theatre working with some of the industry’s most influential dancers and choreographers.
Marlena first began dancing at the age of three, which she admits was “way too young;” but seriously began to study dance at nine-years-old. As a child, her parents would take her to see touring Broadway shows in Boston which inspired her to have a career in the arts. At the age of 14, she began studying with renowned dancer and teacher Harriet Hoctor, who had an established career in vaudeville including dancing in the Ziegfeld Follies and in films with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Marlena credits Hoctor with teaching her “not only technique, but the joy and love [of] dance which has remained with me for life.”
Eventually, Marlena moved to New York and saw her first Broadway show, the original cast of West Side Story. Little did she know that just over a year later, she would be dancing in the national tour of the show. This seminal experience led to other touring opportunities such as Bob Fosse’s How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and Peter Gennaro’s Unsinkable Molly Brown. She also danced in the concert company of Matt Mattox, famed dancer and choreographer on Broadway and in classic films such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Band Wagon, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and There’s No Business Like Show Business. In between Broadway tours, Marlena danced with Charles Weidman introducing her to modern dance styles in addition to her musical theatre repertoire.
In the 1960s, Marlena moved back to Boston to join the original Boston company of Hair which performed at the Wilbur Theatre. Marlena describes this as “a pivotal experience for me because, not only did I make lifelong friends in the show, but because we reflected and were part of important transitional events that shaped the direction of the country and helped to end an unpopular war.” Marlena is proud of her hippie-heritage (which included singing with Bob Dylan at the Thirdside in Greenwich Village) and it has informed her political and artistic expression throughout her life.
After Hair closed, Marlena began teaching at Boston Ballet, which is how she found out about the job at Emerson. In her thirty plus years with Emerson, Marlena has seen significant changes in the dance program. A dance major was disbanded a few years ago to place dance under the umbrella of the Musical Theatre department a change that, Marlena says was “necessary given the strong interest in musical theatre.” X-Dance is one tradition that continues offering Dance minors and students from throughout the Emerson community the experience of creating original choreography and for student dancers to participate in the creation of new work. As Marlena says, “It's an exciting opportunity for students to meet and exchange choreographic ideas, and one that results in interaction between students that might not have otherwise met.”
About this year’s X-Dance, Marlena says, “each of the six pieces presents a different and interesting perspective on life’s vicissitudes. Each piece is very different from the others and that’s what makes a concert exciting and fun.”
