Brown University Theatre and Julie A. Strandberg present:

DANCE ENSEMBLE SPRING CONCERT

• Stuart Theatre, 77 Waterman Street, Providence, RI
• May 6-9, 2004 at 8 pm, plus 3 PM matinee May 9, 2004
• Tickets: ($10 Seniors, Faculty and Staff, $5 Students)
  Call Brown Box-office at 401-863-2838, Tue-Fri 12-5 PM

Rich, versatile, textured and intense, this season's Spring Concert is culturally diverse and yet spiritually unified by the experience of remembering. Artists in residence join the Brown University dance faculty to provide an evening full of thrilling and evocative dance.

This year's Lawton Wehle Fitt Artist in Residence are Chinese movement-theatre artist Yin Mei (presenting Nomad: The River) and Carolyn Dorfman whose work often celebrates Jewish tradition and the lives of those effected by the Holocaust.
Take Note: Opening Night, May 6 ONLY! In addition to her regularly scheduled piece Portrait Carolyn Dorfman, will present the added bonus of The Klezmer Sketch from her renowned program Mayne Mentshn!

Ballet artist in residence Brian Reeder will premiere two new pieces, as will Michelle Bach-Coulibaly whose modern works are deeply enriched with West African culture. The company will also perform Battle Etude and Rush Hour by Robert Battle and Ecce Etude by Danny Grossman as well as Eve Gentry's historical piece Tenant of the Street (1938).

Choreographer Biographies

Carolyn Dorfman is the artistic director of the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company (CDDC). She is a guest artist/choreographer at major universities in the US and is on the guest faculty at the Limón Institute in New York. . She is a leading dance artist for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Artist in the Schools Program, a Principal Affiliate in Arts Education for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and led the dance program of the Artist/Teacher Institute for five years. Dorfman has created more than 50 works for CDDC since founding the company in 1982. CDDC, hailed for its "elegance and power" and "technical ability, versatility and inner fire," presents new and repertory works by Dorfman and nationally known choreographers and regularly commissions original scores and artistic collaborations. As a child of Holocaust survivors, Dorfman has spent the last 18 years creating work that explores the pain of that experience for her parents, her family and herself and has come to realize that to fully understand the profoundness of pain and loss, one must experience and celebrate the life that was interrupted. Sifting carefully through the rubble, she discovered a rich legacy and a story that had to be told. If not, the pain would remain and the lives and memories lost forever. In The Klezmer Sketch she has mined the exuberant, joyful, yet soulful quality of Klezmer music that inspired her to explore Jewish gesture, expression, ritual, character and values. Dorfman received a 2004 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and is a 2004 Lawton Wehle Fitt Artist in Residence at Brown University.

Mayne Mentshn was made possible in part by a grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture's Pearl Zeltzer Fund for Jewish Choreography; the AT&T Foundation; Nick and Shelley DeFilippis; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Joel, Carol, Noah & Jordan Dorfman; Henry and Mala Dorfman; Gregory S. Gallick, M.D.; The Karma Foundation; North Star Partner;
The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation; and Summit Physical Therapy.

Yin Mei Recent Guggenheim Fellow for "Nomad" Trilogy

Yin Mei was born in China and started her professional career in traditional Chinese dance during the Cultural Revolution. Before coming to the United States to study modern dance on a grant from the Asian Cultural Council, she was a member of a leading Chinese dance company. Yin Mei now choreographs and performs her contemporary work worldwide, having forged a dance style that employs Chinese energy direction and spatial principles as a means of creating dance within the rubric of modern dance theater. Her work has been presented and produced by the Asia Society in New York and performed across the country. A longtime practitioner and teacher of tai chi and a student of the I Ching, Yin Mei's research into Chinese contemplative practice was recognized with a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Yin Mei is a visiting faculty member at Brown University this spring of 2004 and a Lawton Wehle Fitt Artist In Residence.

Brian Reeder was born in Sunbury Pennsylvania and began his dance training with Marcia Dale Weary at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. After attending American Ballet Theatre's Summer Program (1981-82), he studied at the School of American Ballet from 1982-86. Reeder danced with New York City Ballet from 1986-90 and was a soloist with William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt from 1990-93 before joining American Ballet Theatre, where he danced from 1994-2003. As a choreographer, Reeder has created works for Midsummer Arts Festival at Chateau du Courances, France; the Vermont Dance Festival; St. Barth's Music Festival and American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company. Reeder is currently teaching and choreographing in New York City area high schools with the education and outreach programs of American Ballet Theatre. He was in residence at Brown University in the fall of 2003, teaching courses in Ballet and on the repertory of William Forsythe and setting new works on the Dance Extension and New Works, World Traditions.

Michelle Bach-Coulibaly is a teacher, choreographer, and dancer, who teaches on the faculties of Brown University, Connecticut College, the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's National Theatre Institute, and is the Director of Dance at the Providence Music School. She is artistic-director of BABEMBA USA, a World Music and Dance Ensemble, is choreographer-in-residence with the Touring and Repertory Dance Theatre at Brown University, directs the children's West African Dance Company, Little Babemba, and performs and teaches as an artist in the schools throughout the New England states. She is currently working on a documentary, and accompanying textbook on the social and popular dances of the Bambara peoples of Mali, West Africa. With her troupe, she has developed interactive programs that incorporate ritual play, drumming, storytelling, call and response singing, and dances that honor the West African Tradition in lieu of their influence upon American culture. Bach-Coulibaly is also artistic director of modern dance troupe, TANAGRA MOVEMENT THEATER - an all woman's theatrical company that writes and presents original movement operas.

Eve Gentry (1909-1994) had a lifelong passion for dance that guided her from her rural California childhood to New York City where she was thrust in the middle of the evolving modern dance movement of the 1930s. She was a member of the original Hanya Holm Company and simultaneously a member of the militant New Dance Group, which was dedicated to social change through dance. The events of her time drove Gentry to promote a leftist ideology in her life and art. Tenant of the Street was choreographed in the midst of Depression-era New York. Mary Anne Santos Newhall is working on a Repertory Etude™ based on Tenant of the Street, and on the legacy of the New Dance Group. Expanding on her work with Eve Gentry, Newhall has been researching the work of German dance pioneer Mary Wigman and her influence on American modern dance. Newhall teaches at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.

Danny Grossman's world view was influenced by the social activism of his parents. He began folk dancing in grade school and later studied modern dance with Gloria Unti. He met Paul Taylor in 1963 and was invited to join the company with which he toured for ten years. In 1973 he was invited to Toronto by Toronto Dance Theatre cofounder David Earle and joined the faculty of York University that same year. In 1975, he formed his own company. He has created more than 30 works and has toured Canada and more than 17 countries. In 1978 he received Canada's major choreographic distinction, the Jean A. Chalmers Award.

Robert Battle is the artistic director of Battleworks Dance Company. Originally from Miami, Florida, he graduated from New World School of the Arts where he trained with Gerri Houlihan. He earned a BFA from The Juilliard School, under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy, where he studied choreography with Bessie Schoenberg, Elizabeth Keen and Doris Rudko. While at Juilliard, he received a Princess Grace Dance Scholarship and the Martha Hill Prize. After graduation, Battle joined the Parsons Dance Company, with whom he danced for seven years. His choreography was performed by the Parsons Dance Company across the U.S. and internationally. In addition, his works have been commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Hubbard Street 2, Dallas Black Dance Theater, The Juilliard School, Introdans, Ruth Rosenberg Dance Ensemble, Evolving Arts Inc., The Repertory Etudes™ Collection, Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp and Point Park College. In 2002, Battle established his own company, which has performed in Germany, South America, New Orleans, St. Louis and most recently at Jacob's Pillow.