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Brown Theatre presents:

Brown Festival of Dance 2006

(Formerly Spring Dance Concert)
Produced by Julie Strandberg

May 4-7, 2006
Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm
And Sunday at 2 pm

Stuart Theatre
Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts
77 Waterman Street , Providence Rhode Island

Tickets $15 ($5/Students & $10 Seniors/Employees)
Box Office 401-863-2838 Tuesday – Friday 12-5 pm
Info: www.brown.edu/tickets

As always, the spring dance concert features a wide variety of work, from historical to cutting edge. To accommodate the needs of our patrons who already come on different nights to see different sections of the concert, we’re moving to a festival format. To make it easier, every night features the same dance pieces, however each night the order changes rotating each act to the front of the line. Concessions are now available in the lobby between acts where patrons will have the opportunity to mingle with performers and choreographers.

Festival Schedule

Descriptions of the Work

ANiMAL INTERpLAY:

A dance that draws from animal research.

New York City- based experimental modern dance choreographer, Chris Elam (’98, www.misnomer.org), has led the cast of student performers through a semester-long investigation of the social interplay between animals, culminating in the creation of a new choreography. Select professors from a range of fields engaged with the cast and the process has merged education with creation.

Studying penguins and white-cheeked gibbons, we examined a range of social behaviors including imitation, mimicking, preening, hugging, courtship, play, threat, and affection. We gave particular attention to the formal ritualistic displays that the animals exhibit, leading to fascinating exchanges as individuals and in groups.

This collaborative study produced the building blocks of the choreography, which will be based on an original language of movement and distinct set of rules for interplay between the performers. Elam has crafted these exchanges into a completed choreography that mixes research with imagination. The final choreography treats the stage like a Petri dish into which an audience peers to see an absurd wonderland world of life interactions.

Celebration

Choreographed by Martha Graham, Celebration premiered on February 25 1934 in New York City. It is a minimalist study of joy. It is a classic example of the start abstraction of Graham's formative years and the vocabulary she was creating -- clear, forceful gesture full of angularities and gruff athleticism. Originally danced by a cast of twelve women, Celebration is pure austere, succinct expression. There is no story line, but is exuberance itself. Reconstructed by Jennifer Conley.

Company

Company (1991), choreographed by founding director of dance, Julie Strandberg, is set to two concerti by Antonia Vivaldi. Through pure movement, this dance for 9 women and 3 men explores the relationship of dancers in a dance company - from those early competitive unsure moments in class or audition; to the building of trust and friendship; through the weaving of a whole from the threads of the exquisite individuality of each member; to the exhilaration of performance when movement is tossed uncompetitively from dancer to dancer with generosity and respect. Each of the brief solos in the 2nd section is choreographed specifically on each dancer to highlight his or her uniqueness. This section always changes from cast to cast.

The Envelope

The Envelope was choreographed by David Parsons in 1986 and is one of his signature works. Set to a collage of Rossini Overtures, this ever-popular piece is a farcical and hysterical romp where the dancers are pitted against a renegade piece of stationery. The Brown Dance Extension first performed The Envelope in 1986, the year it premiered and it remains a popular addition to the repertory.

Ethereal Journey

Ethereal Journey explores the emotional chaos realized moments after bombings and loss of life during war. Choreographer Carol Abizaid is expanding her piece which is based upon her childhood experiences in war torn Beirut. A graduate of Brown, Abizaid's previous works have been performed in Europe and at Carnegie Hall, the Kitchen, and the Manhattan Center in NYC.

Melting into Glass : Sacrifice of the Marrow

Choreographed by Michelle Bach-Coulibaly and New Works World Traditions
Original music by Ethan Philbrick, Johnny Edwards, Seydou Coulibaly and Issa Coulibaly with Jimi Hendrix’ “Merman” and “Shotgun”.

Mali , West Africa, 1991… The Gulf War is underway in the East while Mali is on the brink of a coup d’etat in the West. While young people demonstrate in the streets against Dictator Moussa Traore, two brothers are torn between traditional values and the growing unrest both within themselves and within their country. Impoverished families and friends displaced from their homes, the brothers leave Bamako only to find war and strife wherever they land. Hungry for peace, they finally escape to live under the sea.

Melting into Glass is an original movement theatre piece that explores the sights and sounds of refugee texts, political landscapes and the search for cultural memory. Live music is played by Malian musicians, Troupe Komee Josee and the Johnny Edwards Blues Band.

Miribalya Ko ye Nomossa

Miribalya Ko ye Nimissa was developed by guest artist, Lacina Coulibaly in collaboration with the students in his choreography class. Miribalya Ko ye Nimissa is a Bambaran (West African) saying that means “think before you act.”

Why is it that we, in our current world, are not conscious of the effects and consequences of our personal ambition? How can we transform selfish pleasures into joy that is interactive? How can we become aware of what our actions impose on others and of what actions others impose upon us?

Movement calls on possibility and likewise it is ephemeral, changing as we watch and are watched by others. Oh, how movement could unite us in creating a better future if only we could think before we act!

Water Study

In 1900, Isadora Duncan choreographed the Water Study as one piece in a series of choreographies known as Schubertanza. Isadora has been noted as saying that “all the great events of my life have taken place by the sea. My first idea of movement, of the dance, certainly came from the rhythm of the waves.” The Water Study is one of Duncan’s choreographies that deals explicitly with her primary source of inspiration, the sea. The undulations of the waves and the forceful beauty of the ocean currents are translated onto the stage through Duncan’s graceful, flowing movements.