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Brown Festival of Dance -- a thrilling and diverse evening of world-class choreography. Highlights of the program include “Ciona,” created in 1974 by Pilobolus and “Radical Acts of Prayer” created by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in collaboration with the performers. The program also includes Donna Jewell’s 1992 signature work, “Madame Sand,” and new works by Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Meida McNeal, and Carol Abizaid.
“Madame Sand” – Donna Jewell
“Beirut at Dawn” – Carol Abizaid
“Give Thanks” – Meida McNeal
“Radical Acts of Prayer” – Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
“Ciona” – Pilobolus ACT II
“Bloodlines” – NewWorks/Michelle Bach-Coulibaly
Donna Jewell’s “Madame Sand” was inspired by writer Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupine (1804-1876) whose pen name was George Sand. The social climate of the time made it necessary for her to present herself in public as a man in order to gain acceptance as a writer. Her tumultuous relationships with artists, including Frederic Chopin, are perhaps as well-known as her literary works. This abstract depiction of her life, set to Chopin’s music, explores the many facets of this intriguing woman.
Carol Abizaid's "Beirut at Dawn" addresses the elements of chaos and personal loss, and the beauty found in grief and sadness the morning after the violence of war in Lebanon. These aspects are negotiated through the Islamic and Christian beliefs of people indigenous to the country, and speak to how they manage, rationalize, and mourn sudden loss during war. “Give Thanks” (2008) is based on an earlier collaborative dance theater work, “Househedz” (2007), that explored the significance of Chicago house music/dance culture as a critical social utopia. From one vantage point, house echoes plantation drums, chain gangs/work songs, gospel and blues. Yet this pastiche musical lexicon also includes influences such as funk, disco, Euro-pop, salsa, Afro-beat and industrial percussion. An evocation of both the sacred and the profane, “Give Thanks” explores house's connections between the invincible spirit of historical black music traditions and house's contemporary conditions. Here, house becomes an example of an urban folk practice and experience.
“Radical Acts of Prayer” is part of a large, multi-year initiative by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and explores the intersection between activism and contemplative practice, Created during a two-week residency with Dance Exchange members in January 2008, “Radical Acts of Prayer” is a moving blend of individual stories and movements.
Set to a chiming, burbling, grinding electronic score, the dancers in “Ciona” move through a shimmering ebb and flow of movement, traveling in leapfrogging jumps, back flips and flying circles in a sleek continuous motion stuffed with acrobatic incident.
Bloodline (premiere 2008)
Choreographed by Michelle Bach-Coulibaly and New Works/World Traditions, Bloodline exists as a love poem to the earth, a call to attention, contemplation and celebration of our mytho-poetic relationship to Nature and disease.
Through original text, live music and dance from around the globe, stark images, and masquerade, Bloodline explores Nature's sublime elegance and intelligence to teach us the complexities of collective behavior, mutation, adaptation, diversity and change.
Simultaneously, Bloodline weaves personal narratives of "the body" with global environmental and disease control initiatives in service to combat malarial infection and the devastation of natural habitats caused by deforestation.
Science and metaphysics dance a pas de duex to French love songs, Dante, Shakespearian Love Sonnets and current research on infectious disease from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Works/World Traditions has been invited by the Ministry of Culture to perform Bloodline at the opening ceremonies of 2008 Biennale Festival of Art and Culture in Mali, West Africa this coming September.
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