Friends of Brockport Dance

Westward Ho (from Rochester, that is...not from Brockport): Garth Fagan Dance's Spring Season coming May 2-3

Garth Fagan Dance is again presenting a Spring Season on the West Side. As you may remember, last year's Spring Season was the first time I'd seen Garth Fagan Dance perform and I was in awe of their artistry.

There will only be three performances—May 2nd at 8:00 pm and May 3rd at 2:00 and 8:00 pm. The performances are again being presented at the Athena Performing Arts Center, 800 Long Pond Rd, Rochester, NY 14612. Tickets are $30 adult and $20 seniors and students ($35/$25 at the door), and are available at all Wegmans "That's T.H.E. Ticket" locations up to three hours prior to curtain. The matinée on May 3rd features performance by Greece Athena Show Choir students and Garth Fagan Dance School students. If you pre-purchase you can get one child in free for the price of one ticket on the May 3rd 2:00 pm performance.

If you go and would like to write a review, contact me through this site and we'll get your thoughts published.

Come see, hear and FEEL Sankofa! African dance at its best

With color, rhythm and energy, the Sankofa African Dance and Drum Ensemble will be exploding onto the the stage at Hartwell Dance Theater in performances, beginning Thursday, April 24th through Saturday, April 25th at 7:30 pm. There is also a matinee performance on Sunday, April 27th at 2 pm. Hartwell Dance Theater is located in Hartwell Hall, Kenyon Street, on the campus of The College at Brockport, State University of New York.

This year, Sankofa has Habib Iddrisu as the guest artist. Iddrisu is currently completing his doctorate at Northwestern University. His contributions to the concert include:

•   “The Village of Batiti,” a choreographic vision of tribal celebrations and rituals in a West African village.
• “Gumboot Dance” strives to see the aesthetic qualities in what was once the only means of communication amongst those forced to toil in South African mines. Gumboots were the rubber overshoes worn by the miners, in which they would embed links of chain or discarded bottlecaps, with which they would tap out messages—or just their proximity to one another—in the stifling, pitch-black mines where they were forbidden to speak.
• “Fumè Fumè” recreates a religious celebration of life amongst the Ga sect, found in southern Ghana.

Iddrisu’s time on the Brockport campus, serving as an adjunct during the fall 2007 semester, exceeded his expectations. “I had heard of the Sankofa program, and knew it was one of very few programs of its type on a college campus, but when I got here, I felt lucky to be a part of it.” When he returned to the campus for additional rehearsals, he found that the “support and enthusiasm was even greater than when I was teaching in the fall.” Visiting professor/guest artist Bill Evans has choreographed “Nubia,” along with his dancers. Reflecting on the piece, Evans said that “as I began to work on this piece, I shared a rhythmic sound and movement language I had generated with the dancers, and asked each of them to participate in creating the dance. In handing these sounds over to them, I drew upon my knowledge of rhythm tap and my studies with the great African-American choreographer Donald McKayle, who was strongly influenced by the dances of Caribbean cultures. He fused these influences with mainstream modern dance techniques to create a fluid, grounded and rhythmic style of contemporary dance.”

The capstone of the concert is, as always, “Ijexa,” which brilliantly weaves the chanting, drumming and dancing that make a Sankofa concert what it is. The boisterous finale ensures that cultures that may be unfamiliar to Brockport audiences are honored. Clyde Alafiju Morgan, associate professor and artistic director of Sankofa, feels that “without ‘Ijexa,’ without ‘Sankofa’—which literally means that there is no going forward without looking past—without these things, we would have no idea how we got to where we are today, or how we can move on to tomorrow.”

Links to you. . . .

I added a number of links to the left panel Dance Sites & Media links a long time ago, but many of them never made it live onto the site as I had not configured the display right. They are there now, in addition to a new one Dance Help, which caused me to discover my earlier error. Hope you find these "new" resources helpful.

The Raw and the Cooked: Brockport Dance grad students hold a tasting at the University of Rochester

Graduate students candidates for MFAs from SUNY Brockport’s Department of Dance will be presenting a selection of their "raw and cooked" choreographic works at the University of Rochester on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The evening will include an array of dances created both in and outside of the graduate choreography class; some have been previously performed, other are still works in progress as well as a discussion with the choreographers on the process of creating their work.

The choreographers highlighted are currently exploring various compositional devices under the artistic direction of Assistant Professor of Dance Maura Keefe and include Heather Acomb, Madia Cooper, Kathy Diehl, Kristi Faulkner, Kirstin Howard, Crystal Malone, Melinda Planey, Rebecca Sproul and Lyndsey Vader. Several of the Brockport students attended a lecture/demonstration at the UofR last month by guest artist Sean Curran. The enthusiastic audience and great performance space sparked an interest in sharing more dance with students in the University of Rochester's Program of Movement & Dance and the University of Rochester community. It also gives the wider Rochester community an opportunity to see the talent coming out of the SUNY Brockport Department of Dance firsthand.

The performance will be held at 7:45 pm in the Dance Studio in Spurrier Hall at the University of Rochester. The event is free and open to the public. For additional information, contact either Maura Keefe or Lyndsey Vader at lvade1 AT brockport DOT edu.

Dance/Hartwell returns April 3-5 to showcase new Brockport choreography

It's time again for DANCE/Hartwell, presented by the Department of Dance on April 3rd-5th, featuring three exciting new choreographic works by Molly Christie, Cynthia Hermann, and Mark Schmidt—who are each candidates for a Master of Fine Arts degree in dance. The "students have crafted an impressive display of new choreography, brought to life by the most skilled and expressive young artists, from one of the country’s leading departments of dance,” notes Artistic Director and Assistant Professor of Dance at Brockport, Suzanne Oliver. Maura Keefe, assistant professor of dance and graduate program coordinator is Artistic Director responsibilities with Oliver for Dance/Hartwell.

The featured MFA works will include two dances by Mark Schmidt exploring a physical vocabulary inspired by the cultural practices and movement qualities found in the New York underground House dance scene. Originating in Chicago and New York, House is a musical genre and dance style with roots in African-American vernacular jazz-tap. “Socially,” Schmidt observed, “this dance form is an affirmation and celebration of cultural marginality through communal dancing.” The diverse cast celebrates, explores, recreates, and reinvents the rituals and social practices of house dance culture on the concert stage.

Molly Christie’s piece will explore the embodiment and transformation of encoded ritual movement and rhythmic languages from two sacred dance and music traditions. The traditional works are transformed for the concert dance stage. An original musical score by Clement Joseph, weaving both modern and traditional musical languages and instrumentation, has been commissioned to accompany the piece.

Cynthia Hermann will be working with two movements from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, the Allegretto and the Allegro Con Brio. “Within my choreography,” said Hermann, “I hope to bring to life the energy and emotion that I feel when I listen to these two pieces of music. Beethoven's music is sophisticated and complex so my goal for the work is to choreograph two pieces that dance with the music rather than to it.”

The remaining dances in the concert will include choreography selected in an adjudicated process open to all graduate and undergraduate dance students. We hope you come out for a wonderful evening of dance!

Performances are being Thursday–Saturday, April 3–5, at 7:30 pm, Hartwell Dance Theater, Kenyon Street. Tickets for DANCE/Hartwell are $12 general/$10 seniors/$8 students and are available at the Tower Fine Arts Box Office on Holley Street. For more information, call (585)395-ARTS.

FOBD Newsletter: Bill Evans's Creative Activities

We continue (and actually finish) the republication of the Friends of Brockport Dance newsletter, which was published in January with these notes by Visiting Professor and Guest Artist Bill Evans on his creative activities during his recent leave:

During the 10 weeks during which I was off-campus on my 2/3 semester unpaid leave, I was able to accomplish the following:

• Full-length solo performances at: Skidmore College (Reminiscences of a Dancing Man), Cornish College of the Arts (rhythm tap improvisations accompanied by Joe LaBarbera), and Allegheny College (rhythm tap choreography and improvisation, accompanied by Allegheny College jazz musicians); full-length duet performance with Adrienne Wilson at Nazareth College, (Dancin’ through the History of Jazz, produced by David Perlman, narrated by Michael Lasser, accompanied by seven Rochester area jazz musicians); four duet performances of my work Yes, Indeed! with Mark Santillano, at Mercyhurst College; performance of my solo Three Preludes for the Texas Association of Dance, Galveston
• Half-day seminars/lecture-demonstrations at: On the Boards Center for Contemporary Performing Arts in Seattle (The Legacy of Bill Evans) and at the Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Bellingham, WA (The Bill Evans Effect)
• Two-day workshop in Evans Modern Dance Technique, Bartenieff Fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis for the Arizona Dance Education Organization in Phoenix
• Teaching residencies at: Skidmore College (three days), Cornish College (three weeks), Anne Green Gilbert’s Creative Dance Center (two classes), Allegheny College (two classes), Mercyhurst College (two weeks), San Jacinto College (three days), Texas Association of Dance (two classes), Calvert High School, southern Maryland (one class)
• Restaging of choreographic works at Cornish College of the Arts (30-minute Mixin’ It Up, with support of National Endowment for the Arts); Mercyhurst College, Erie, PA (Passionsong and Yes, Indeed!)
• Choreography of new works for: Dance Gallery, Bellingham, WA (Perhaps for the Last Time); Anne Green Gilbert’s Kaleidoscope Dancers, Seattle, WA (Jamaican Me Happy); Southern Maryland Dance Collective, Calvert County (Home); Ohio Northern University, Ada (Puttin’ Down the Fog)
• Keynote address for Texas Association of Dance, Galveston

I really missed teaching our wonderful Brockport dance majors during the fall semester, but I was able to mentor a group of students for their performances of my choreography in our DANSCORE concerts, and I was also able to act as artistic director of DANSCORE, serve as mentor to our ACDFA Conference coordinators, and continue to act as departmental liaison to FOBD. In November, a new book edited by Renata Celichowska, Seven Statements of Survival: Conversations with Dance Professionals, was published by Dance and Movement Press in New York City. It includes an extensive interview with, and several photographs of, me. Others subjects are Carolyn Carlson, Garth Fagan, Deborah Jowitt, Madeleine Nichols, Andrea Synder and Joanne Keal’inohomoku.

FOBD Newsletter: Professor Suarez Takes A Sabbatical

We continue the ongoing republication of the FOBD Newsletter originally published in January. The following are some notes by Associate Professor and MA Graduate Dance Program Advisor Juanita Suarez about her upcoming sabbatical:

Juanita Suarez will be serving her sabbatical spring semester 2008 and plans to teach at a private school in China, Guang Ya School, the first private school to ever open in China. She will create a dance drama based on the survival story of the Giant Panda and set the work on students of the Guang Ya School as well as on a talented young actor by the name of Xiong Liang Chao. The work will be presented for the director and administrative personnel of the Wolong Natural Reserve for the Giant Panda in Wolong China. VIPs engaged with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will also be attending this performance.

Bill Evans Meet Bill Evans...In Seattle

In the mid-1970s, Seattle had a limited modern dance scene. That's when current visiting professor and guest artist Bill Evans was invited there from Utah. A number of dancers flocked to Seattle to perform with the Bill Evans Dance Company. This video is from program on a Seattle cable channel about that history, focusing on the restaging of Mixin' It Up by the students at Cornish College of the Arts. Bill Evans oversaw the project as a visiting artist. Originally performed in 1979 as "A Double Bill" to the music of jazz pianist Bill Evans and his Trio in this 2007 version Evans is accompanied by students from the Cornish Jazz Ensemble.

Brockport hosts the American College Dance Festival Association Northeast Conference

The College at Brockport is presenting the Gala Concert of the American College Dance Festival Association's Northeast Conference in two performances on March 16th. This year's conference is being hosted by the Department of Dance, which will enter one faculty-choreographed piece and one student-choreographed piece in the adjudication process. In the past three years, five of the six Brockport pieces that have been adjudicated at ACDFA conferences have been selected for culminating gala performances. Many other area schools, including Hobart and William Smith Colleges, SUNY College at Geneseo and the University at Buffalo, will enter pieces in the year’s conference adjudication process and may be represented in the Gala Concert.

The conference will begin on Wednesday afternoon, March 12, with a master class by the great rhythm tap artist Dianne Walker, who will be completing a guest artist residency in the Department of Dance. A Welcoming Concert on that evening will feature the three adjudicators. Over the following three and one-half days, the conference will feature more than 130 master classes in many dance forms, a number of panel discussions, five adjudicated concerts, two informal concerts and two faculty concerts. Local dancers are invited to participate in conference master classes for a fee of $15 per session. To register, please send an e-mail.

The gala concert will include eight to ten works that represent the highest artistic and technical standards of performance and choreography in the more than 30 college dance programs that will participate in the five-day conference. During five different adjudication concerts, performed on March 13–15, a panel of national experts will select the works to receive the honor of being performed in this culminating concert. All performers must be matriculating students in a participating college or university dance program or department. At least half the choreographers submitting works for the adjudication process must also be students.

Other choreographers will include faculty members at participating schools and professional choreographers/guest artists. The adjudication panel for this year’s Northeast Regional Conference is comprised of Gesel Mason, Richard Move and Claire Porter.

• Gesel Mason has performed nationally and internationally with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, Jacek Luminski of Silesian Dance Theatre, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and Ralph Lemon. She was selected as Emerging Choreographer by the Bates Dance Festival in 2000, received two Metro DC Dance Awards, and a 2007 Millennium Stage Local Dance Commissioning Project from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
• Richard Move choreographs for and performs with his own New York City-based dance company, MoveOpolis. His works have been performed at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York City and at the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival in western Massachusetts. He has appeared as a guest artist with the Centre Choréographique National de Tours in France, for which he created a choreographic work that premiered at Théatre de la Ville in Paris. He has choreographed for the Martha Graham Dance Company and has created an acclaimed theatrical dance work for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project.
• Claire Porter’s work has been produced by Dance Theater Workshop, PS-122, Joyce Soho, The Bottom Line, NY Horticulture Society, The Knitting Factory, Danspace at St. Marks, Jacob’s Pillow, Southern Theater in Minneapolis, MN; Duncan Theater in Palm Beach, FL; Liberty Science Center NJ; Kitchen Theater in Ithaca, NY; Wooley Mammoth Theater in DC; Off Center Theater in Tampa, FL; Center Stage in Raleigh, NC; American Dance Festival, Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy, Holland Festival in the Netherlands, Tour of Comedy in Germany and the Korea International Festival in Seoul. She performed at the opening of the Peter Eisenman Building at the University of Cincinnati, was the hostess-comedienne-scene changer for the Minnesota Composers Forum’s New Music Concert and has appeared on staircases, boats, backyards, gyms, classrooms, airports, humor festivals, museums and soapboxes.

There will be two public Gala Performances on the mainstage of the Tower Fine Arts Center, on Sunday, March 16, at 12:30 pm and again at 3:30 pm. Tickets are available at the Tower Fine Arts Center box office, (585) 395-ARTS, $12 General/$10 Seniors/$8 Students. The conference is being coordinated by Department of Dance Adjunct Instructors Kelly Ferris and Heather Roffe, with a planning committee consisting of Assistant Professor, Anne Burnidge, Visiting Professor Bill Evans, Associate Professor James Hansen and Assistant Professor Maura Keefe.

FOBD Newsletter: We continue with three vignettes by Professor Maura Keefe . . .

We continue the ongoing republication of the FOBD Newsletter originally published in January (OK, I realize I'm REALLY spreading this out, but the content is good and not everyone that reads the blog received the newsletter, which by the way is also available as a PDF for download in the left panel. I meant to post this on 2/25, but it never posted (oops)).

The following notes on several events in dance at Brockport during 2007 were prepared by Maura Keefe, Assistant Professor and MFA Graduate Dance Program Advisor:

DANCE/Strasser

This year’s DANCE/Strasser performance included new works by eight graduate and undergraduate choreographers. The modern dance works explored a variety of movement styles. Following the show, the choreographers participated in a post-performance discussion about their works and answered audience questions. Each choreographer worked with a faculty mentor and an evening of feedback from a panel of faculty members provided helpful insight into the creative process. The dances were auditioned for the concert and selected by an adjudication committee of faculty and students.

Travis Gatling Residency

Travis Gatling, associate professor of dance at Ohio University, was one of the guest artists in residence in the SUNY Brockport Department of Dance for two weeks this fall. Gatling is a highly sought after guest teacher and choreographer, with recent residencies at venues that include the Black College Dance Exchange, Georgia State University's Movement Force Dance Company, Emory University Dance Company, the Urban Dance Academy at Norfolk State University, Coker College, University of Akron, and the University of Michigan, Flint. While at Brockport, Gatling taught master classes in modern dance and jazz dance. He also started a new work to the music of Brazilian composer Tom Ze with the students from the combined Repertory and Literature classes. The students asked Gatling’s permission to show the work-in-progress at the end of the semester Dime-A-Dance performances. Gatling also worked with two general education classes called Introduction to Dance. He first lectured about the African American sacred tradition of the Ring Shout and taught them the dance. He then had students build on the dance’s structure to incorporate their own movement concepts. Finally, Gatling gave performance notes and feedback to the student performers at dress rehearsal for DANCE/Strasser, drawing on his own extensive experience as a freelance dance artist. His presence was a welcome addition to the department and we hope to bring him in again.

Dialogues in Dance

This fall, assistant professor of dance Maura Keefe moderated two panels discussions hosted by Marymount Manhattan College called “Dialogues in Dance.” The first was Creating a Living Archive with panelists Michelle Potter, Curator at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Ginger Montel, Associate Director of Twyla Tharp Productions; Lynn Weber, Acting Executive Director of the Dance Notation Bureau New York City; and, Carol Teitelbaum, Faculty Chair, Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

The second panel addressed issues of technology in performance called Multi-Media Dances. The panelists included video designer and installation artist Maya Ciarrochi, dance and media artist Jonah Bokaer, and Christopher Williams, a dancer, choreographer, and puppeteer.

RocLoop video profile of Brockport's Kathy Diehl

The new Democrat & Chronicle social networking site for Rochester area college students, RocLoop.com recently did a video profile of graduate teaching assistant Kathy Diehl as "Someone to Know" (click on the link to go to the site to see the video). The video shows Ms. Diehl teaching a contemporary ballet class during the recent Brockport Dance Awareness Days and talking about how she came to be teaching dance.
Diehl is a classical ballet instructor and dancer from Rochester. She has been a faculty member at the Timothy M. Draper Center for Dance Education since 1996, and also teaches at Nazareth Academy.

African Footprint comes to Rochester

Thought I'd let you know about a show coming to the Auditorium Theater of February 27th. Described as the Riverdance of South Africa (and its longest running show), Richard Loring's African Footprint has been seen by over 250 million viewers around the world and came to the U.S. in November. In African Footprint the history of South Africa is told by 30 performers through a blend of music and dance (based on what I've seen so far, a lot of dance). The show starts at 7:30 pm on February 27th. Tickets are on sale through the Rochester Broadway Theater League.

Excerpts of a review of DANSCORE 2007: Moving to Make Things Whole by Donna Davenport (Part II)

Note: Artistic Director Bill Evans engaged Donna Davenport, Ed.D., Professor of Dance/Associate Dean of Faculty, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, to write an extensive review of the production. She has given her permission to reproduce these following excerpts from her much-longer and more complete description of the concert. This is the second post that continues with Professor Davenport's review.

“Woman: Claiming Courage, Breathing Spirit,” by Darwin Prioleau

[This work] started with a visually provocative set design that provided choreographic cues. Yet the way I imagined the dance to unfold did not happen, and surprises are good. Because the piece had distinct sections with a soloist and an ensemble, I couldn’t help but think after I re-read the title (after the concert) that the first dancer was the woman claiming courage and the ensemble was breathing spirit. ***

*** I appreciated the upstage landscape of colorful androgynous faces painted on large white panels, the two drummers stage left, and the soulful percussion that followed. The mammoth paintings were caricatures of pensive expressions (to my eye). The beautiful soloist in a magenta dress and a patterned shawl moved with fluid poise among these faces after dancing an expressive and sustained introductory solo to drums that told a story (to my ear) about struggle, personal power, and persistence. After she gave up her shawl to arms that drifted into the upstage left wing, and after the drummers left, she danced in a downstage special, only slightly empowering the original thematic movement ideas. ***

*** Suddenly, I was in a land of celebration. The young women moved to the contemporary, groovy African jazz and Soni’s vocals. They danced well in an Ailey-esque style that may have felt foreign to their bodies at first but didn’t look that way on Saturday. They appeared joyful in their presentation of the movement vocabulary, which is a tribute to the teaching and to their personal connection with the themes of the dance. ***

“Hidden Message, by Juanita Suarez

*** On purely visual and aural levels, there were stunning moments in this dance that existed as individual elements in the expansive space … above the floor, into the wings, and out to the orchestra pit. Suarez’s glorious voice in her long black wig, Saleem’s expert drumming, a soulful composition of sound, waves of water moving on the cyclorama, and beautifully harsh green lighting that penetrated the dancing. ***

In Part II, I entered a different mode of watching dance and experiencing choreographed actions on the stage. I normally think of dance as existing for my body and my eyes, essentially from left to right, the way we read in North America, across a horizontal temporal continuum. A dance begins at a certain point on the left of my visual and kinesthetic consciousness and ends on the right; it goes from “here to there.” But not this dance. It did not progress horizontally like a movement narrative with the past, present, and future connected to one another. ***.

*** After the “Water is me…life…memory,” the piano’s sound became furiously disjointed and dramatic, and suddenly the dancers were affected by something tangible. They shook and wiggled and solo’d in the space. The diagonal became important in this final section, at one strong moment with the singer and the dancers at opposite ends. The last lunging ensemble phrase was the dancers’ final gesture, free from the entrapment underneath them? They made a definitive circle with their fingers on the floor downstage, inscribing the message perhaps and ending the journey? ***

“Hidden Message” has stumped me and intrigued me. Maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen. I’d like to see it again.

“Los Gringos,” by Bill Evans and Eddie Murphy

“Los Gringos” was a delightful interlude, a playful conversation with rhythms, dancing characters, pretended competitions, and dance languages. Two mature, professional dancers playfully mocked their own movement styles, expert technique, and maybe even their Whiteness, tried on each other’s arms and legs without doing them real justice, and expertly toyed with musicality. The title reminded me of Bill’s time in Albuquerque; I imagine he felt like a “gringo” there, and of course with this music… songs of Spain, these two White men are like fish out of water in their Flamenco colors. The bull fight allusions through spatial jockeying and hyper-masculine Latino body attitudes were humorous, as were the repeated cross-footed motifs, accentuated by a stop and a look, which made me chuckle each time it happened. This dance made me happy. These were two men, being not terribly precious about choreography or taking themselves too seriously for a few fun moments. The dance had irony, whimsy, and dancer humor—quite a pleasure.

“Discesa in Bianco,” by Anne Burnidge

This title (Italian for “descent in white”?) didn’t lead me anywhere semantically, but the opening action did. Right away, the clear and expressive articulation of gesture caught my attention. The first soloist held something precious, and the others celebrated it above their heads. The urgency of the motion, the clarity and deliberateness of the repetition, and the light, quick jumps were stunning. The beautiful use of quick time and gesture was captivating. These dancers had been coached expertly. They understood the rich Effort Life they were dancing. They knew what each gesture meant to them (which made them seem important to the viewer), and their relational moments among them were equally expressive and meaningful in the instant they occurred. Many of the partnering phrases appeared to necessitate a slower pace, and thus, the quickness was exciting and unpredictable. For the receptive audience member, this kind of dancing is felt in the body; it’s a visceral experience to follow the action on the stage and to empathize with the motion and its qualitative extremes.***

*** The lusciousness was mesmerizing—in the live strings, the lighting, the silky light costumes, the use of space, and the dancing. It was pleasure for the eye, the ear, and the soul. Yet the choreographic development paused towards the end, and I started to wander as a viewer. The meaning-making lost its momentum, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it was too much of the same good thing, and I needed a contrast to stay with it. Certainly, this did not detract from my overall enjoyment, however. This piece is sheer beauty on many levels. ***

“Craps (1979),” by Bill Evans

*** Right away, I also noticed a different movement aesthetic-Bill Evans in the late 70’s! It was refreshing. The bouncing and sliding, the extensions, and “classical” modern dance movements—spins, drops, back attitude turns, pike jumps, and arm swings—were pleasing to my contemporary eye. ***

*** I couldn’t help but notice the different approach these college dancers had to employ to perform this movement vocabulary. So much of advanced modern dance technique these days involves smooth transitions between contrasting movements, loose and articulate gestures, balletic precision of the feet, and the ability to ooze from one athletic moment to the next. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, we were still standing on one leg quite a bit, extending our limbs to communicate a sense of personal agency, and moving deliberately from one clear moment in the space to another distinct position. ***

*** The fast sliding into a strong second position and the splats on the floor are visually and kinesthetically exciting, and they were performed spectacularly by these dancers and placed within a choreographic context that made them perfect each time. The flung arms into the back space looked quite contemporary, but it could also be a result of the training that SUNY Brockport dancers have: they know how to use their core to stabilize their bodies while they curve forward and fling their arms back behind them with strong weight and indirect space. And speaking of backspace, the falling was beautiful. Again, as a teacher I was thinking about the challenge inherent in reconstructing the falls backwards into another dancer’s arms, the jumps into arms, the accumulation of this motif, and generating the risky feeling of ongoingness. A lovely ending. ***

*** This work was a successful collaboration among top-notch artists—the rehearsal directors, the lighting designer, and the composers/musicians. The educational value of this process is unquestionable. This is the kind of experience that generates student pride, which drives the passion to take the risk of entering dance as a career.

Conclusion

*** I believe that “moving to make things whole” is the process of composing dance. And on more of an Existential level, as dancers and choreographers, we move to make our lives and ourselves whole. ***

*** To put together a full concert of dance is an impressive undertaking, especially when it is generated with live music, performances of both students and faculty, and with standards of excellence that are sought across-the-board.

Excerpts of a review of DANSCORE 2007: Moving to Make Things Whole by Donna Davenport (Part I)

Note: Artistic Director Bill Evans engaged Donna Davenport, Ed.D., Professor of Dance/Associate Dean of Faculty, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY,  to write an extensive review of the production. She has given her permission to reproduce these following excerpts from her much-longer and more complete description of the concert. A second post tomorrow will complete the excerpts from Professor Davenport's review.

I congratulate the SUNY Brockport Department of Dance, the dance faculty, and students on their fine concert. I’ve seen several DANSCORE concerts over the years and always consider them well worth the drive from Geneva, NY. I have vivid memories of works by Wally Wolfgruber, Susanna Newman, Bill Evans, and others swirling in my mind still. These lasting images are not only a tribute to the choreographers but to the accomplished dance performances of the students and faculty in the concerts.

“Peeling Away,” by Suzanne Oliver

*** I appreciate all the places that “Peeling Away” took me, as well as the fine dancing (technical and expressive) of its cast. The last ensemble moment was equally as poignant as the poetry." ***

*** The lighting design supported the poetic mood beautifully: I was never conscious of it, only conscious of sculpted moments on the bodies and in the stage space and special moments illuminated for the dancers. ***

I appreciated many aspects of this work. The music pieces were rich in sound and texture, evocative, and satisfying to my ear. When a voice went away and instrumentation took over, or when a new theme began, the transition was welcomed and seamless. The dancers and the choreography connected well to the music. The movement sequences were danced passionately by the young performers, both soloists and unison ensembles. They articulated the nuanced phrasing clearly, thereby generating a kinesthetic vitality that may be this work’s most successful attribute. The indirect and free swinging of the arms during regular locomotor phrases suggested some careful coaching of the performance of different Effort/Shape qualities in different parts of the body. Well done. ***

Growing Up In An African Village, by Habib Iddrisu

***While the piece was clearly about art (music, dance, song, costume, and storytelling), it was performed as a sophisticated piece of entertainment—music, dance, and storytelling--to dazzle the audience and to teach naive North Americans something about the West African village and the way children are raised. The scenery and ceremonial undressing, layer by layer, established a narrative rhythm and a sense of showmanship that enhances audience expectations to be taken on a cultural journey to an unknown land. As Iddrisu explained, the song titled “Stupid” was sung by the character’s mother (we don’t know if it’s actually Iddrisu’s mother). The moral to the mother’s story taught African children not to crave too much praise but instead to strive for greatness and to develop humility at an early age. This is especially poignant and necessarily didactic for North American audiences today. ***

*** This performer/choreographer had impeccable timing with his verbal, percussive, and kinesthetic phrasing. Everything ended on a dime and started at just the right instant. The warm rapport established with the audience endeared us to him just as we began to become awestruck by the virtuosity before us. ***

*** When he ends his piece simultaneously executing the performance of the talking drum, the percussionist, and the polyrhythmic dancer, the audience is yet even more in awe of his abilities and humbled by the fact that we in this capitalistic culture can barely even fathom that degree of artistic virtuosity and this kind of wealth and power. ***

“frozen,” by James Hansen

Space was crafted exquisitely in this work, both the invisible and overlapping spaces between and among the dancers and within the stage space. Hansen is a master of the diagonal and the luscious three-dimensionality it generates. I felt as if I were observing a form of choreographic intelligence, something I recognized in the Hansen piece I saw last year. The seamless method of phrase manipulation and the transition into lifts and floor work were frequently reminiscent of a brilliant choreographic style, rather than movement that told this story about these people in these moments in space and time.

The music blended with the lighting design, which blended with the costumes, which blended with the choreography. I perceived “frozen” as a whole composition rather than a collection of complementary parts.

 

For me, this work speaks volumes about modern dance as art and the way that space, energy, and the body are used just the way paint is used on a canvas—to evoke a sensory idea that is only tangible through the human spirit and the consciousness that perceives it.

“Evening Song,” by Jacqueline Davis

[This work] conveyed a sense of autobiography right away. The name of the choreographer/performer and her sister were uttered by a male voice on the recording. This was a theatrical solo with a rocking chair, a very long piece of fabric, and a scratchy album (old LP) sound of a father’s voice at bedtime. I imagined the action of this dance to have been conceived cognitively. It followed a chronological logic and a linear sense of time passing and personal history unfolding for the audience. For me, the strong diagonal (downstage left to upstage right) symbolized historical time. The repetitive structure of the piece symbolized recurring memories, both joyful and somber. The fabric was a symbol for remembering and re-living childhood. The father’s voice was a symbol for loss of a parent. And the rocking chair and its use symbolized mourning and needed comfort. This interpretation of the work was intellectualized of course and could be entirely off-base. ***

*** The protagonist of this tale appeared to be dressed like a child in whitish pajamas, and yet the smart costume choice had a chameleon quality: it changed with the action. The movement choices and use of the props reflected each stage of the journey, and the costume absorbed each change. The simplicity of the idea and the clarity of the performance were satisfying. The pace of the piece left room for audience members to ponder memories of their own fathers at bedtime. There was a warm generosity expressed by the dancer and enhanced by the expert lighting design, which invited me into the work and into her journey, very much like a sweet evening song that is passed on, over generations. ***

Come out and experience dance at Dance Awareness Days

SUNY Brockport’s Department of Dance and Student Dance Organization are excited to be presenting Dance Awareness Days again, which returns February 21st through 23rd. Members of the community who are 16 years and older are invited to participate in classes with Brockport faculty and guest artists. Join us for this special opportunity to brush up on your dance skills, learn a few new steps, and have some fun. During DAD, the distinguished alumni, faculty and staff of SUNY Brockport will teach more than 40 classes in various dance styles, including ballet, tai chi, yoga, tap, Pilates, modern, capoeira, Irish, African and African/Caribbean, body articulation, improvisation, Jazzercise, Brazilian Samba and folk, tango, composition, plus Katherine Dunham technique and more. Except for Reiki and massage sessions, all classes and activities are free of charge and open to the public to celebrate all aspects of dance and extend to the greater community opportunities to share in the dance experience.

Members of the community who wish to participate in Dance Awareness Days activities are required to register each day. Proof of age (participants must be 16 years and older) will be required at time of registration. Parking permits are required to park on the Brockport campus during DAD and are available for $2/day at the Raye H. Conrad Welcome Center, located at the corner of New Campus Drive and Commencement Drive. Plan to arrive early, as daytime parking on campus is limited. Registration and classes will be held in Hartwell Hall, Kenyon Street, on The College at Brockport campus. For more information, including a complete schedule of classes, call the Department of Dance at (585) 395-2153 or click here for an online copy.

Additionally, during DAD, Six Flag’s Darien Lake performer auditions for dancers are scheduled for Thursday, February 21 from 5 – 7 pm in rooms 231/240 Hartwell Hall. On Friday, February 22, undergraduate and graduate dancers will present an informal choreographic showing from 5:00 to 6:30 pm in Hartwell Dance Theater followed by the BSG sponsored poetry/dance event First Wave Spoken Word featuring Mayda del Valle with a performance by Christopher Walker (a 2004 alum).