Under the artistic direction of visiting professor/guest artist Bill Evans, the world-renowned Department of Dance at the College at Brockport, State University of New York, will be presenting the Best of Brockport Dance 2009, on April 4th at the Jewish Community Center, featuring an elegant reception and stunning dance concert including the finest recent works created for and by the department’s students. The BOBD is being held at the JCC to heighten awareness of Brockport's world-class Dance Department in the Greater Rochester area.
We're told that the pre-concert reception, starting at 6:00 pm, will be a feast for the eyes and the taste buds, including cuisine and libations, as well as informal dance performances and music by Brockport faculty and student artists. The concert itself will begin promptly at 8 pm. Ticket prices are $75 for the concert and reception, and $37.50 for the concert only. The event is a benefit for the Department of Dance’s incoming student scholarship fund.
The 90-minute concert will present choreography by several members of the faculty, two outstanding students and a distinguished guest artist. It will showcase vibrant, diverse and eloquent performances by almost 50 selected undergraduate and graduate artists and several faculty artists as well. There will be a wide variety of styles, techniques and diversity in the program. Award-winning faculty artists represented in the program include Bill Evans, James Hansen, Habib Iddrisu, Maura Keefe, Suzanne Oliver and Darwin Prioleau. Faculty and staff musical artists who will share their work in live performance include James Joseph Kaufmann, Greg Ketchum and Khalid Abdul N’Faly Saleem. The evening’s celebrated guest choreographer is Dianne McIntyre. Senior BFA candidate Sarah Moore and MFA candidate Kelly Kavanaugh complete the roster. Works will include:
- Guest artist Dianne McIntyre worked in collaboration with musicians Kaufmann, Ketchum and Saleem and a large cast of student dance artists over a period of several months to create “Club,” a strikingly athletic and contemporary investigation and celebration of community. Bill Evans’ “Colony” is a penetrating and rhythmically compelling look at the history of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Maoris, and their struggles with identity under British colonization.
- The Sankofa African Dance and Drum Ensemble, under the artistic direction of professor Clyde Alafiju Morgan, will perform a drumming piece led by Khalid Saleem and a South African “Gumboot Dance” recreated by Habib Iddrisu. Historians believe the gumboot dance likely originated among South African gold miners; many of the original steps and routines were parodies of the officers and guards who controlled the mines and workers' barracks.
- “Conflict in Light,” a modern/jazz/theater work choreographed by dance department chair, Darwin Prioleau, incorporates dance, text and song to explore the intrinsic need of the human spirit for hope. Suzanne Oliver’s solo, “Swan Song,” is a poignant exploration of loss, brokenness and the incredible tenacity of the human spirit.
- James Hansen’s “Shaken with a Twist” is a light-hearted and quirky duet that presents a couple caught in a churning yet not too serious frustration of daily life. During the summer of 2009, this dance will be produced in national dance festivals in New York, Chicago and Virginia. “Inching Toward Abandon” was choreographed by Maura Keefe, in collaboration with two undergraduate and two graduate students to music by One Ring Zero. It reveals an odd sense of community.
- Kelly Kavanaugh will present an excerpt from her MFA thesis entitled “Time to Come to Standing,” a rhythmic and kaleidoscopic exploration of community and the self within. Sarah Moore’s “Go Get” depicts a dancer becoming helpless in a situation that takes total control over her by the end of the piece.
For the SUNY Brockport community, there will be two preview performances of Best of Brockport Dance 2009 in the College’s Hartwell Dance Theater on Thursday and Friday, April 2 and 3, 2009 at 7:30 pm. Tickets for these performances are $12, $10/Seniors and Brockport faculty and staff, and $8 for students, and are available by phone at (585) 395-ARTS or at the Tower Fine Arts Center Box Office, 180 Holley Street, Brockport. Remaining tickets for the April 2 and 3 performances may also be available at the Box Office in Hartwell Hall one hour prior to each performance, and may also be available at the JCC Box Office beginning at 6 pm for the April 4 performance. A portion of the ticket price to the April 4 benefit performance is tax-deductible: For the $75 concert and reception ticket, $30 is tax-deductible. The gift portion of the $37.50 concert only ticket is $7.50.
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