UW News

November 16, 2006

Teachers create, perform work in annual Faculty Dance Concert

The Dance Program at the UW opens its annual performance season with a concert featuring work and performances by its nationally recognized faculty. The concert runs Nov. 30 through Dec. 3.


UW Artist in Residence Mark Haim restages, Parade, originally commissioned by the University of Southern Mississippi in 2002. This large group work was inspired by seeing a lone woman waiting at a shelter-less bus stop in a typically Southern torrential downpour.


Reverb, by Dance Lecturer Jurg Koch, is a piece for five dancers investigating individual movement language while carving out shared spaces and moments. This is Koch’s second creation for “the workshop,” an ad hoc community group involving performers from on and off the UW campus.


Jim Hansen, a guest artist who is an assistant professor at SUNY Brockport, and rehearsal director Melanie Aceto (University of Buffalo) were in residence at the UW for a week this October to set Hansen’s Fissures. The trio is set to Ned Rorem’s musical themes and addresses what happens when a smoldering aggression builds to the point of eruption.


Fritha Pengally, formerly of the Doug Elkins Company and a recent member of the UW Chamber Dance Company, uses the circularity of human existence as inspiration for her work. Pengally is a visiting lecturer this year.


Dance Program Director Betsy Cooper joins Visiting Lecturer Dominique Gabella in La Valse, an homage to Gabella’s mother. The duet is a loving memory of choreography Gabella’s mother created when Dominique was only 8 years old. As time passed, neither could remember the original choreography, so this piece is an exploration of memory and reaching out across time and space. The work will also be performed in the May 2007 concert of Gabella’s company, Next Stage Dance Theatre.


Concert performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30 through Saturday, Dec. 2. The Sunday, Dec. 3 performance is at 2 p.m. All performances take place in the Meany Studio Theatre. Tickets are $18, $16 for UW faculty, Staff and UWAA members, and $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are available through the UW Arts Ticket Office at 206-543-4880, in person at 4001 University Way NE or on the Web at www.meany.org