WHO: Weber State University Department of Performing Arts
WHAT: Orchesis Dance Theatre, directed by Joanne Lawrence
WHERE: Eccles Theater, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: November 18 and 19, 20 at 7:30 and November 20 & 21 at 2:00 pm
Weber State University Department of Performing Arts presents Orchesis Dance Theatre’s Fall Concert, directed by Joanne Lawrence and featuring the choreography of a guest artist, two faculty members, two students and the restaging of a 1928 dance classic, November 18, 19 and 20 at 7:30 and November 20 and 21 at 2 PM in the Eccles Theater, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts.
“Green Map® Icon Studies” is choreographed by Zvi Gotheiner, RDT (Repertory Dance Theatre) dancers and WSU Moving Company dancers. Zvi Gotheiner is a native of Israel and a permanent resident of the United States, based in New York since 1978. This dance is a product of the Green Map® Project.
Weber State University’s Moving Company and Geography Department, in partnership with the visionary RDT, have created the Green Map® Project, a transformative, community building project designed to create paths of inquiry, exploration and expression while inspiring young people to be thoughtful and productive citizens. (See separate release for more details) This will culminate in a full length performance on February 23 but the fall concert will feature six Green Map® Icons Studies: Local Business, Bicycle Path, Recycling, Wetlands, Lively Spot (Entertainment), Community Garden.
“Water Study,” choreographed in 1928 and restaged by Joni Urry Wilson for this performance, is one of the most stunning achievements in abstract dance. While the movement vocabulary is simple, almost primal, the form of the dance is highly selective. Doris Humphrey believed that the absence of music increases the spectator’s attention to movement. Water Study is performed in silence, building rhythmic phrases from the natural ebb and balance of the tides. Three main types of water motion are suggested: the swell and draw of the tide, the cumulative force and burst of the waves, and the surging subsurface flow of flat calm. (More information in separate release.
Faculty member Alysia Woodruff choreographs a work inspired by the American Sign Language poem “Until.” This solo explains the concept of labels and how we tend to box ourselves into and within these labels as we struggle to be free. This work was originally choreographed in collaboration with the poet Ayisha Knight-Shawn, premiering in Boston in 2005.
Alycia Cole, WSU student, explains that her dance explores the different approaches to interpersonal communication within a partnership or group and how non-verbal communication along with technology impacts our relationships. She wants to express the importance of personal contact between people and how it can enhance the strength of any and every relationship.
Student Natalie Porter’s piece analyzes the integrity of an individual when seduced by pressures of conformity. With paint on the human body as a visual element throughout the piece, the internal struggle of the soloist poses the question whether one is an individual or just a member of the crowd.
Tickets are $10/$7 and can be purchased at the Dee Events Center Ticket Office, 1-800-WSU-TIKS or at the Browning Center Box Office beginning one hour before each performance.
For more information about this production contact director Joanne Lawrence, jlawrence@weber.edu.
1928 Dance Classic Featured in DancEffect
WHO: Weber State University Department of Performing Arts
WHAT: Orchesis Dance Theatre, directed by Joanne Lawrence
WHERE: Eccles Theater, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: November 18 and 19, 20 at 7:30 and November 20 & 21 at 2:00 pm
Orchesis Dance Theatre’s Fall Concert, directed by Joanne Lawrence, features a restaging of a 1928 dance masterpiece: “Water Study” by Doris Humphrey, restaged by Joni Urry Wilson and coached by Ray Cook by agreement with the Dance Notation Bureau.
“Water Study,” choreographed in 1928, is one of the most stunning achievements in abstract dance. While the movement vocabulary is simple, almost primal, the form of the dance is highly selective. Doris Humphrey believed that the absence of music increases the spectator’s attention to movement. She experimented with natural rhythms, motion, pulse and breath. “Water Study” is performed in silence, building rhythmic phrases from the natural ebb and balance of the tides. Three main types of water motion are suggested: the swell and draw of the tide, the cumulative force and burst of the waves, and the surging subsurface flow of flat calm.
Doris Humphrey is one of the founders of modern dance. For her, the moment of excitement happens in the arc between imbalance and security. Her Innovations (from http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/doris.html):
1. Humphrey’s codification of “Fall and Recovery” and the development of a movement vocabulary based on its rhythms stands today as an important tradition in the modern dance family tree.
2. Humphrey was responsible for the creation of the first concrete, fully articulated choreographic method for modern dance-makers. Humphrey’s 1958 book, “The Art of Making Dances,” was the first book of its kind, and remains an important document for choreographers and dancers.
3. Humphrey pioneered the first full use of the ensemble as opposed to the solo figure in concert dancing. She was the first modern dancer to analyze and write about the choreographic process, thus separating the dancer from the dance.
Ray Cook is the first full-time professional notator* of works by Doris Humphrey (http://dance.vassar.edu/faculty_cook.html). His work in the United States includes fifteen years on the faculty of Vassar College. Originally from Australia, in the 1970s Cook returned briefly as ballet master for Australian Dance Theatre under the direction of Elizabeth Dalman. Cook has notated the dances of a range of choreographers including Doris Humphrey, Anna Sokolow, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and Lin Hwai-min as well as small selection of works by Australian choreographers. http://www.australiadancing.org/subjects/1641.html
Joni Wilson, Studio Director for the University of Utah Tanner Dance Program, set “Water Study” on WSU Moving Company. Children’s Dance Theater (CDT), the performing arm of Tanner Dance, which has performed the piece several times over the last 30 years.
*Dance Notation: Labanotation as a system for recording and analyzing human movement, was first published by Rudolf Laban in 1928. His analysis of movement is based on spatial, anatomical, and dynamic principles. Using this system of recording movement based on the universal laws of kinetics allows for reconstruction of the simplest to the most complex movements, great works of the theater and other more diverse activities such as time/motion studies for industry, medical, even psychiatric purposes (http://www.whcnet/bhsdance/html/labanotation.html
Green Map® Project in First Public Appearance
WHO: Weber State University Department of Performing Arts
WHAT: Orchesis Dance Theatre, directed by Joanne Lawrence
WHERE: Eccles Theater, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts
WHEN: November 18 and 19, 20 at 7:30 and November 20 & 21 at 2:00 pm
Orchesis Dance Theatre’s Fall Concert, directed by Joanne Lawrence, features the first public appearance of the Green Map® Project at Weber State. Part of the project is the creation of dance for a full concert on February 23. A first installment on the project is “Green Map® Icon Studies,” featured in the Orchesis Fall Concert. Choreographed by Zvi Gotheiner, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) dancers, and WSU Moving Company dancers, the work animates mapping icons that students in the public schools are using to map their community. The six icons included in this concert are Local Business, Bicycle Path, The Recyclables, Wetlands, Lively Spot (Entertainment), and Community Gardens.
WSU is partnering with Repertory Dance Theatre to create a unique Arts/Environmental Education Program for schools based on the Green Map® System, a global movement encouraging communities to take inventory of sustainability practices. Through “place-based” education, interdisciplinary activities and the arts, participants will utilize the Green Map® System tools to actively engage 30,000 young people in Utah in the life of their communities and inspire a dynamic understanding of “place.”
Joanne Lawrence, WSU dance faculty, and Dr. Julie Rich, geography faculty, are coordinating the activities in Ogden. WSU geography and dance students are working with schools K-12 to become engaged in mapping Ogden to identify sustainable living. Under the guidance of the Green Map Steering Committee, led by Lawrence, Rich and Linda Smith, RDT Executive/Artistic Director, WSU dancers, community volunteers and leaders in the environmental education community will assist students and teachers in developing a Green Map inventory of Ogden as a pathways to developing life-long learning skills.
Linda Smith is the driving force of the project in Utah. She is also the WSU Hurst Artist in Residency for the 2010-11 academic year. A founding member of RDT, Smith has served as Artistic Director for the company since 1983. The Ogden Green Map Steering Committee include Fran Bradshaw, Melanie Clifford, Alycia Cole, Bob Herman, Jim Jacobs, Joanne L. Lawrence, Carrie Maxson, Victoria Pitcher, Ashley Remkes, Julie Rich, Linda Smith and Ivan Weber.
The process, enhanced by a movement language inspired by the Green Map icons, will celebrate environmental progress and help identify concerns. It will anchor our community’s strengths, assets and challenges on an enduring, dynamic map of our own landscape and celebrate this map in art, neighborhood by neighborhood, school by school. The process leads to the creation of a new paradigm in environmental education, a model program to be replicated in communities nationwide.
The Green Map Project consists of three concurrent interrelated activities: the creation of a Green Map of Ogden City (digital and printed); Arts and Environmental Education outreach activities including lectures, movement classes, teacher workshops, demonstrations for teachers and students; performance events for schools and the community, with a public performance February 23rd, 2011 at Weber State.
Green Mapping has been adopted in over 600 cities world wide and helps individuals understand their community through the literal use of a map that will be created by students using beautifully designed Green Map icons to identify places such as nature preserves and cultural centers, history, geography, environmental justice and activism,green enterprises and efforts to improve the environment. Students in the project will create paths and techniques of inquiry, exploration and expression while learning to be thoughtful and productive citizens (www.greenmap.org
Dr. Julie Rich is the WSU geography faculty working on this project. When asked about the unusual collaboration she says, “Geographers investigate spatial patterns on the earth’s surface. In a way, we look at how the natural world is choreographed, so blending the science of geography and the art form of dance is as natural as the world we live in.”
For more information:
Joanne Lawrence, dance, jlawrence@weber.edu or 801 626 6479
Julie Rich, geography: jrich@weber.edu or 801 626 6209
Linda Smith, Repertory Dance Theatre, lynne@rdtutah.org or 801-534-1000
No comments:
Post a Comment