UW News

November 15, 2007

Faculty Dance Concert Nov. 29 – Dec.2

The UW Dance Program will offer its annual Faculty Dance Concert Nov. 29 through Dec. 2 in the Meany Studio Theatre. This year’s concert features collaboratively created work and new media, including new group dances and solo works by Mark Haim and Jürg Koch, a duet with live conga by Juliet McMains, along with Six People in a Room and Something Happens, a re-staging of a 1993 work by guest choreographer Bebe Miller.


Betsy Cooper, the Dance Program’s director is thrilled at the opportunity to involve Miller in this year’s concert. Miller’s choreography has been noted for its mix of virtuosic, athletic speed and she has made an indelible mark on the modern dance scene as both a choreographer and educator. In Six People in a Room and Something Happens, Miller investigates the mix of theatrical narrative and abstract movement as a way to expand physical language.


Haim, the dance program’s senior artist in residence, presents his latest solo, Guide to South-ern Trees, a project recently completed at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. The collaboration with visual artist Amy Yoes explores the interplay between dance and image. Using a framework of elaborately detailed linear drawings seemingly creating themselves on the floor in real time, the performer’s presence adds another dimension, super-imposing the human body alongside these projections and interacting with them. The play between visual projection and the body is a dance of complements; the movement defers to image, and vice-versa. Haim also premieres a new group work for 13 dancers to a contemporary score.


Assistant Professor McMains contributes a new duet for the concert, informed by her research into the history of Mambo and Salsa dance and their migratory paths from the Caribbean to the U.S. and back again.


Added to this mix is Mor´phon, Koch’s new solo performance collaboration incorporating original music from composer Lyn Goeringer of Brown University, along with projections and images from filmmaker Sheri Wills. This unique work was developed in partnership with the collaborating artists during “real time” rehearsals as well as work each artist did on his or her own. The piece explores abstract notions of identity and the possibilities of the moving body/image. This performance marks the world premiere. Koch is also presenting a new group piece from “the workshop,” a collective of dancers from UW and the community who come together to learn from one another in the creation and performance of new work.


The Faculty Dance Concert is in performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $18, $16 for UW faculty, staff and UWAA members and $10 for students and seniors. Tickets and information are available at the UW Arts Ticket Office at 206-543-4880 or on-line at www.meany.org