Viver Brasil performances to feature sacred and secular Brazilian dance, capoeira, and percussion

An interview with Eric Galm (Ph.D.’04)  by Center for the Arts Intern and Music Major Lucia Strother ’11

In anticipation of this weekend’s upcoming performances by Viver Brasil, I spoke with Eric Galm, Wesleyan graduate and professor of music and ethnomusicology at Trinity College. Galm is an expert in Brazilian music, and provided some valuable background information for Friday and Saturday’s performances.

Viver Brasil
Photo by Jorge Vismara

A large portion of Brazilian music and dance has emerged from the music and dance of the African diaspora, and in Brazil, music and dance are virtually inseparable. Eric highlighted two categories of Brazilian tradition that illustrate this connection and will be represented in this weekend’s performances. Sacred music and dancing, known as candomblé, expresses African-derived religion that is still found in Brazil. There is also a lot of African-derived social dancing, generally known as batuque (the generic label applied by the Portuguese during early years in Brazil).

Later, the samba emerged through a mix of European dance styles and variants of these African dances, and is now the most popular form of music and dance in Brazil. Samba and its accompanying music was popularized in the 1930s, when dictator Getúlio Vargas made it the “official dance” of Brazil in an attempt to unify the regionally segmented nation.

Viver Brasil’s performance this weekend will extract motifs, phrases and elements from these traditional forms, and transpose them to the stage using the choreography and storytelling of modern dance. Eric previewed the program of Viver Brasil’s performance and identified that the first half will be based on sacred dance forms, while the second half will feature several types of secular dance.

In the first half, dances will invoke specific deities from Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. Eric elaborated on the way the religious storytelling is incorporated in Brazilian music and dance:

“Each of the spirits have their own set of songs and musical rhythms. For example, Xango is the god of thunder and guardian of the drums. He’s represented by the colors red and white, and dances with a double-headed hatchet or axe. There are a certain set of markers that identify him, and a strict set of songs and rhythms that make up his music.”

Therefore, anyone steeped in these religious expressions would be able to identify a particular deity and follow the storyline.

Each of the secular traditions that will be featured in the performance’s second half has its own extensive body of work with songs to choose from and adapt to the stage. One piece, In Motion, will feature capoeira, an “Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance game.” Eric mentioned that he has seen other modern dance representations of capoeira and been disappointed by the decision of those companies to eliminate the one-on-one, combat element that is so central to the art.

Audiences should expect a lot of percussion, much of it improvised. Sometimes, as in the case of the berimbau, a one-stringed percussion instrument, the percussion will actually inform the dancers’ movement. The music will also feature female vocalists and melodic instruments like flute or saxophone. I’m excited to see the variety these performances will offer, and happy to have the opportunity to experience a category of world music that is under-represented at Wesleyan.

Friday, March 25 & Saturday, March 26, 8pm
Pre-performance talk by Debra Cash in the CFA Hall at 7:15pm before the Friday performance
CFA Theater
$23 general public, $19 seniors, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students, $8 Wesleyan students

Three in One: A Celebration of Dance at Wesleyan

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company

This Saturday, we welcome three exceptional dance companies to the Center for the Arts Theater. For those who have been coming to the Breaking Ground Dance Series, you’ll remember that in 2004, we commissioned Ronald K. Brown/Evidence’s Come Ye, set to and inspired by the music of Nina Simone. In 2007, we presented the world premiere of One Shot, an evening-length work inspired by photographs of Pittsburgh native Charles “Teenie” Harris.  He was known as “One Shot” because whenever he was given a photo assignment, it only took him one shot to get “the” picture. This Saturday, Brown returns to teach a master class in the afternoon and that evening, his company will perform excerpts of One Shot, as well as Ife/My Heart.  Ife/My Heart was created in 2005 for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and draws on themes of faith and inspiration.

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet will follow, presenting a program of duets choreographed by George Balanchine. The Suzanne Farrell Ballet has been the Kennedy Center‘s own ballet company, housed in Washington, D.C. since 2001. The company exists to realize the vision of Artistic Director Suzanne Farrell, with over 30 ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Maurice Béjart in its repertoire.

Gallim Dance
Gallim Dance

Finally, the Center for the Arts is delighted to be awarding the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award to Andrea Miller, artistic director of Gallim Dance. Wesleyan has a long history with Miller: when Andrea was a student at Juilliard (and home for the weekend in Branford where her mother lives), she took classes at DanceMasters. Little did we know then that she would grow up to be an acclaimed choreographer!  After Andrea graduated from Juilliard, she went to Israel to dance with Ohad Naharin’s Ensemble Batsheva, and a few years later returned to New York to develop her choreographic work and to found Gallim. In just four years, the company has distinguished itself for its innovation and virtuosity. On Saturday, the company will present excerpts from I Can See Myself In Your Pupil, the work they presented to rave reviews this past June at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

Please join us to celebrate the breadth and wonder of dance at the twelfth annual DanceMasters Weekend!

DanceMasters Showcase Performance
Saturday, March 5, 8pm
CFA Theater

Tickets: $25 general public; $19 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $8 Wesleyan students

Click here for more information about the DanceMasters master classes

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Who’s Who in the Creation of “The Matter of Origins”

Liz Lerman (Founding Artistic Director) is a choreographer, performer,
writer, educator and speaker. Described by the Washington Post as “the
source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art,”
her dance/theater works have been seen throughout the United States and
abroad. Her aesthetic approach spans the range from abstract to personal
to political, while her working process emphasizes research, translation
between artistic media and intensive collaboration with dancers,
communities and thinkers from diverse disciplines. She founded Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange in 1976 and has cultivated the company’s unique
multi-generational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance.
Liz has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the American
Choreographer Award, Washingtonian magazine’s 1988 Washingtonian of the
Year and a 2002 MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship. Liz’s work has been
commissioned by Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, BalletMet, the
Kennedy Center and Harvard Law School, among many others. From 1994 to
1996, in collaboration with the Music Hall of Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
Liz directed the Shipyard Project, which has been widely noted as an
example of the power of art to enhance such values as social capital and
civic dialogue. From 1999 to 2002 she led Hallelujah, which engaged people
in 15 cities throughout the United States in the creation of a series of
dances “in praise of” topics vital to their communities. She created
Ferocious Beauty: Genome, premiered in 2006, with the participation of
more than 30 scientists and has toured it to sites throughout North
America, including the Mayo Clinic and the Ontario Genomics Institute. Liz
addresses arts, community and business organizations both nationally and
internationally. Sites of recent speaking engagements include the Abbey
Theatre in Dublin, the Big Intensive at Sadler’s Wells in London, and
Harvard University. She is the author of Teaching Dance to Senior Adults
(1983) and Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (2003), and has written
articles and reviews for such publications as Faith and Form, Movement
Research and Washington Post Book World. Co-commissioned by the University
of Maryland and Montclair State University, her newest work, The Matter of
Origins, examines the question of beginnings through dance, media and
innovative formats for conversation. Her collection of essays, titled
Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer, is due out from
Wesleyan University Press in spring of 2011. Born in Los Angeles and
raised in Milwaukee, Liz attended Bennington College and Brandeis
University, received her B.A. in dance from the University of Maryland,
and an M.A. in dance from George Washington University. She is married to
storyteller Jon Spelman. Their daughter Anna recently graduated from
college.

Amelia Cox (Creative Producer) has been working in performance since 1989.
For several years post-college she worked nationally and internationally
with Double Edge Theater (MA) and the Gardzienice Center for Theatre
Practices (Poland), making theater happen in spaces from a
nineteenth-century barn in Massachusetts to a hilltop medieval fortress in
Romania. She came to the mid-Atlantic region in 2002 as the technical
director of Baltimore Theatre Project. Since 2005 she has worked at Dance
Exchange, leading production for the premieres of Small Dances About Big
Ideas
, Ferocious Beauty: Genome, Man/Chair Dances, Funny Uncles, Imprints
on a Landscape: The Mining Project
, 613 Radical Acts of Prayer, The
Farthest Earth from Thee
, Drift and now The Matter of Origins. With Dance
Exchange she has also remounted several other dances, and traveled to
sites from Vancouver, BC, to Burlington, VT, for the company’s animated
keynotes. She holds a B.A. in Theatre from Hope College (MI), and an
M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College (NC).

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Ami Dowden-Fant (Adjunct Artist) began her
dance training at the Richmond Dance Center. She has received numerous
special recognitions including the Outstanding Choreographer and Performer
Award from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a two-year scholarship to
attend the Bates Dance Festival, where she worked with Doug Varone, Robert
Moses, Joanna Mendl Shaw and Bebe Miller. Recently Ami pursued her B.F.A.
in Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University where she
studied with Gerri Houlihan, Heidi Weiss, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Tania
Issac and Dr. James Frazier. Ami has danced for Starr Foster Dance
Project, Charles O. Anderson and Gesel Mason with Mason/Rhynes
Performance Projects. Her work has been performed at the National American
College Dance Festival Gala in New York City at Barnard College, Koresh Artist
Showcase and the CEC in Philadelphia. Currently Ami is freelancing in
Philadelphia. She is in the lab with her company hersouldances
(hersouldances.org) working on new projects. She dedicates her hard work,
love and commitment for dance to her grandfather.

Thomas Dwyer (Company Member) began a dance career with Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange after retiring from the U.S. government service in June 1988.
His choreography, known for employing community-based seniors, has been
presented at Dance Place, the Church Street Theatre in Washington D.C. and
the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.

Sarah Gubbins (Dramaturg) is a Chicago playwright whose most recent play,
Fair Use, was produced at Actor’s Express in Atlanta after being developed
at the Steppenwolf Theater Company. Her plays have also been read or
developed at the Public Theater, About Face Theatre, Chicago Dramatists,
Next Theatre Company and Collaboraction.

Matt Hubbs (Associate Sound Designer) has recently designed Telephone for
the Foundry Theatre, 1001 at Mixed Blood Theatre, Blueprints of Relentless
Nature
and 613 Radical Acts of Prayer for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, 100
Saints You Should Know
at Playwrights Horizons, and the National
Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. A company
member of the TEAM, he has designed Architecting, Particularly in the
Heartland
, a Thousand Natural Shocks, and Mission Drift. As an associate
designer, he has recently worked at MTC’s Friedman Theatre, the Ethel
Barrymore Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, The
Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and La Jolla Playhouse. He has also
toured with SITI Company and the rachel’s band. He received his B.A. in
Philosophy as a University Scholar at Xavier University.

Ted Johnson (Adjunct Artist) is a dancer of long standing with the
company. He was a member of Bebe Miller Company (1995-2003) and Ralph
Lemon Company (1994-95). He has also worked with choreographers Amy Sue
Rosen, David Alan Harris, Sarah Pogostin, Eun Me Ahn, Cheng-Chieh Yu and
more recently, Colleen Thomas and Bill Young, among others. His
improvisational work has been featured in collaborative ventures onstage
with Kirstie Simson, Gabriel Forestieri and Kayoko Nakajima. Ted has a
background in visual arts (drawing, photography, painting and design),
theater and voice. He has been a student of Klein/Mahler Technique with
Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein for over a decade, and continues a practice
in contact improvisation (CI).

Meg Kelly (Production Coordinator and Assistant Stage Manager) joined
Dance Exchange full time in December 2008 after stage managing The
Farthest Earth from Thee
(Capital Fringe 2007) and Muscle and Mortar
(Capital Fringe 2008). She works behind the scenes to keep Dance
Exchange’s productions running smoothly and serves as the stage manager
for Drift, Blueprints of Relentless Nature, Running with the Wind and
numerous keynotes, company concerts and community projects. She has
worked locally at the Shakespeare Theatre Company and Round House Theatre
and holds a B.F.A. in theater design and technology from the University of
Arizona.

Logan Kibens (Projection Design) is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker. Her
work as a video designer includes projects in Chicago for Steppenwolf
Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Lucky Plush and Lookingglass Theatre, and in
D.C. at The Washington Opera. Her films have screened at venues such as
The Chicago International Film Festival, The Brooklyn Museum of Art and
REDCAT Theater Los Angeles. Currently her film Recessive, a
narrative/documentary hybrid, is touring festivals. She holds an M.F.A. in
Film Directing from CalArts.

Lisa LaCharite-Lostritto (Tea Graphics Designer) is a designer currently
operating in the Boston area. With a professional education in
architecture, Lisa’s research, practice and teaching focuses on harvesting
history, culture and collective human consciousness in the experimental
shaping of visual environments. Lisa is co-founder of 0095b6, a
collaboration providing services in graphic, media and architectural
design. Before relocating to the Boston area in 2010 she was an adjunct
instructor at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. In this role she
revised and evolved the advanced digital graphics courses for interior and
exhibit design students.

Sarah Levitt (Company Member) is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher
based in the Washington, D.C. area. She received her B.A. in Dance from
the University of Maryland, College Park in 2007, where she held a
Creative and Performing Arts Scholarship in Dance and was awarded the
Dorothy Madden Emerging Artist Award upon graduation. Sarah has danced in
the work of Robert Battle, Liz Lerman, Gesel Mason, Cassie Meador, Tzveta
Kassabova, PearsonWidrig DanceTheater, and Keith Thompson. Sarah began
working with the Dance Exchange in 2007, and became a full-time company
member in 2010. She has performed and taught with the company at theatres,
universities, senior centers and in community settings across the U.S. and
abroad. Sarah’s work has been presented by Dance Place, McDonogh School,
and Artomatic, and she is the recipient of Individual Artist Awards from
the Maryland State Arts Council in Choreography (2009) and Solo
Performance (2010). She and company member Benjamin Wegman are 2011
recipients of the Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project for
their new work, Hammock, which will premiere in fall 2011 on the Kennedy
Center’s Millennium Stage.

Michael Mazzola‘s (Scenic and Lighting Designer) critically lauded designs
have been in venues in the U.S. and Europe, ranging from opera houses to
circus tents to outdoor amphitheaters. A three-time BESSIE Award winner,
he has recently designed lighting and scenery for National Ballet of
Finland, Oregon Ballet Theatre, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Bebe Miller
Company, Rumpus Room, Royal Ballet of Flanders and Liz Lerman Dance
Exchange. In the past two years Michael has achieved awards on the West
Coast for his lighting of musical theater and drama.

Paloma McGregor (Adjunct Artist) is a New York-based dancer,
choreographer and co-founder of Angela’s Pulse, a collaborative performance company.
Her choreography has been presented throughout New York, including
at The Kitchen, Harlem Stage, EXIT Art, the Brecht Forum, Tribeca Performing Arts
Center and Bronx Academy of Art and Dance, as well as at Yale University,
UCLA, The Dance Place in Washington D.C. and Cleveland Public Theatre. Her
current project, Blood Dazzler, is a dance theater adaptation of poet
Patricia Smith’s award-winning book about Hurricane Katrina; the
evening-length work premiered in September 2010 at Harlem Stage. Paloma
has performed at City Center, the Joyce Theater, the Kennedy Center, BAM
and the United Nations. She toured internationally for five years with the
critically acclaimed Urban Bush Women dance company. Paloma earned her
B.S. in Journalism (Florida A & M University) and her M.F.A. in Dance
(Case Western Reserve University).

Cassie Meador (Company Member) is a choreographer, performer and teacher based
in Washington D.C. Originally from Georgia, she joined the Liz
Lerman Dance Exchange in 2002. She has created dances in communities
throughout the U.S. and internationally in Japan, Canada, London, Ireland
and Guyana. As an educator, she has taught at the Maryland Institute
College of Art, Dance Center — Columbia College in Chicago, Brown
University, Wesleyan University, Kyoto Arts Center, The Place, Sadler’s
Wells, Royal Opera House in London, Bates Dance Festival and American
Dance Festival. Cassie received her B.F.A. in Dance from The Ohio State
University, where she was the recipient of an honor’s research scholarship
in Choreography. Cassie currently serves as a Project Director and
choreographer at the Dance Exchange. In 2006 she co-directed the premiere
of 613 Radical Acts of Prayer: Opening Acts with Liz Lerman at the New
Jersey Performing Arts Center. In 2008, Cassie received a commissioning
grant from John F. Kennedy Center for her work, Drift, which has been
presented at the Kennedy Center, Dance Place and Kohler Arts Center. Her
work has also been presented at the Bealtaine Festival in Ireland, the
Asian Contemporary Art Museum in Fukuoka, Japan, Round House Theatre,
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the Camden Opera House. She is
the recipient of the 2009 Metro D.C. Dance Award for emerging
choreographer. In 2009, Cassie was part of the Feet to the Fire project at
Wesleyan University, where she co-taught a course on tropical ecology with
artist Matt Mahaney and Professor Barry Chernoff. The team traveled to
Guyana and worked with science and art students to bring both artistic and
scientific tools to bear on such topics as ecology and global warming. Her
current choreographic project at the Dance Exchange, How To Lose a
Mountain
, will include a 500-mile journey on foot from Washington, D.C. to
West Virginia to trace the sources of the energy that fuel her home.

Naoko Nagata (Costume Design) started her career as a biochemist in Japan.
In 1998 with no formal training, Nagata created her first costume (for
Jeanine Durning). Since then, she has been creating non-stop for a diverse
group of choreographers and dancers, collaborating with Amanda Loulaki,
Bebe Miller, David Dorfman Dance, Doug Elkins, David Neumann, Ellis Wood,
Gina Gibney, Liz Lerman, Nina Winthrop, Nora Chipaumire, Reggie Wilson,
Tiffany Mills, Urban Bush Women, Zvi Gotheiner and many others. Nagata
helps bring to life what she calls, “the creation of a shared dream.”

Tamara Hurwitz Pullman (Adjunct Artist) has danced with companies
including the Jose Limon Dance Company, Ann Vachon Dance Conduit, Pacific
Dance Ensemble and Rosanna Gamson Worldwide. As a dance educator, she has
taught dance to people of many ages and abilities in different settings
ranging from dance conservatories to YMCAs. She received her B.F.A. from
UMass Amherst and M.F.A. from Temple University. The Matter of Origins is
Tamara’s second project with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. She and her family
live in Los Angeles.

Shula Strassfeld (Company Member) began dancing “too late” and has been
dancing ever since. After training in New York with members of the Jose
Limon Company and Collete Barry and Susan Klein, Shula lived in the U.S.,
Israel and Canada. She has danced with choreographers Susan Rose, Joy
Kellman, Flora Cushman, Mirali Sharon, Jan Van Dyke and Sandra Neels.
Shula has an M.A. in Dance Education from Columbia University and has
taught at Trinity College (Hartford, CT), Rubin Academy of the Hebrew
University, York University and at the professional schools of Canadian
Ballet Theatre, Ballet Creole and the Kibbutz Dance Company. She joined
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 2007.

Keith Thompson (Adjunct Artist and Rehearsal Director) is a choreographer,
performer and educator. He completed his M.F.A. Research Fellowship in
Dance from Bennington College in 2003. He performed with Trisha Brown
Dance Company for ten years, the last three of which he also served as
rehearsal director. Keith continues to represent TBDC in the sharing of
technique and repertory both at the Trisha Brown Studio in New York City
as well as at festivals, schools and workshops around the world. He has
also worked with Bebe Miller Company, Creach/Koeser Company and Danny
Buraczeski. As a choreographer and teacher, Keith has been on the
faculties of American Dance Festival, Shenandoah University, George Mason
University and Temple University. He continues to immerse himself in his
choreographic work with his own company danceTactics performance group,
which was formed in 2005. Keith has been commissioned to create works at
numerous universities including Muhlenberg College, Barnard College, James
Madison University, Duke University, Ursinus College and University of
Maryland College Park. Keith continues new research for new works and has
received support from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the
Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation Inc. His company is currently on the
boutique roster of Jodi Kaplan and Associates.

Benjamin Wegman (Company Member) is a performer, choreographer, and
teacher based in the Washington, D.C. area. Originally hailing from a town
called Normal, Benjamin joined the Dance Exchange in 2007.  With the
company he has worked to make dances with communities across the United
States and internationally in Canada, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, and
France. A respected teacher, he has taught at the American Dance Festival,
University of Maryland, Towson University, Indiana University,
International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and the Japan Contemporary Dance
Network’s Dance Life Festival.  Benjamin had the honor of co-directing the
premiere of Hidden Snow Memory with Keith Thompson in Sapporo, Japan and
Tour Starts Here at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  In 2010, he
collaboratively choreographed and directed House of Cars, a site-specific
work in a downtown D.C. parking garage, in collaboration with the National
Building Museum.  Currently, Benjamin is working on a new piece, Hammock,
with Sarah Levitt, set to premiere at the Kennedy Center in fall 2011.  As
a performer, he has danced with Jeanne Ruddy Dance, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers,
Keith Thompson’s danceTactics, Headlong Dance Theater, CityDance Ensemble,
SCRAP Performance Group, The Pillow Project, Troika Ranch, Meyer Chaffaud
Dance and was recently a featured dancer with the Washington National
Opera.

Broadway and off-Broadway, Darron L. West‘s (Soundscape) work for dance
and theater has been heard in more than 400 productions all over Manhattan
as well as nationally and internationally. Among numerous nominations his
accolades for Sound Design include the 2006 Lortel and AUDELCO Awards,
2004 and 2005 Henry Hewes Design Awards, the Princess Grace, The Village
Voice OBIE Award, and the Entertainment Design magazine EDDY Award. He is
the sound designer and a founding member of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company. As
former Resident Sound Designer for Actors Theater of Louisville, his
directing credits include Kid Simple for the 2004 Humana New Play
Festival, Big Love for Austin’s Rude Mechs (Austin Critics Table Award
Best Director) and SITI’s War of the Worlds Radio Play National Tours and
Radio Macbeth.

Martha Wittman (Company Member) has been teaching, dancing and
choreographing for more than 50 years. As a young performer she danced
with the Juilliard Dance Theatre under the direction of Doris Humphrey and
in the companies of Ruth Currier, Joseph Gifford and Anna Sokolow. For
many years she was an associate choreographer with the Dances We Dance
Company directed by Betty Jones and Fritz Ludin. Her awards include three
National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Doris Humphrey Fellowship
from the American Dance Festival, Individual Artist Awards from the
Maryland Council on the Arts and two awards from Dance/USA’s National
College Choreography Initiative. She was a long-term member of the
Bennington College dance faculty in Vermont, and has been a guest artist,
teacher and choreographer in numerous colleges, universities and summer
dance programs around the country. Martha joined the Dance Exchange in
1996 and has been happily working with them ever since.

An Art/Science Experiment with Tea, Chocolate Cake and iPads

The Center for the Arts has had a deeply creative relationship with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange for the past eight years.  This Thursday, we partner with the company on an experiment that explores these questions:  What happens when you take the theatrical experience and place it at the heart of the campus in a non-traditional setting?  What happens when you employ the arts as a means of entering into scientific questions?  What’s it like to sit at a table with tea and chocolate cake and have a facilitated conversation about where we come from? (And you aid this exchange with iPads, projections, dancers, and yes, Wesleyan faculty, too!) We’ll see this Thursday when Time Has Set the Table for Tea: A Matter of Origins Project is presented at Beckham Hall at 7pm and 9:30pm.

Liz Lerman talks about the origins of this project:

It happened that the summer before meeting Gordy [Gordon Kane, Director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics] I’d read a wonderful book, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’ s American Prometheus, about J. Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the atomic weapons research activities at Los Alamos during World War II. In it, one sentence in particular caught my eye and my inner ear: the mention of Edith Warner, whom Oppenheimer had hired to feed some of his fellow physicists on the secret project a few nights a week at her desert tea house. In an instant I imagined these people in her little space, eating, talking, questioning, wondering, and I mused on the possibility of the same for an audience.

[Time Has Set the Table for Tea] is inspired by tea house gatherings of Edith Warner, and the question of what could happen if we combined the active minds of you in a convivial atmosphere with a few stimulants: tea, cake, a team of table hosts (we call them provocateurs) from diverse backgrounds … along with a few surprises. It is a laboratory of its own, so find your table setting and join us for this experiment, a chance to converse, react, muse, or just observe, listen and enjoy Edith’s own chocolate cake recipe.

Thursday, February 24, 7pm & 9:30pm
Fayerweather Beckham Hall
$4 Wesleyan students,
$5 all others

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Paris-based Compagnie Vincent Mantsoe to Celebrate Story of Khoi-San People at Dance Performances This Weekend

This Saturday and Sunday, legendary choreographer Vincent Mantsoe will bring his Paris-based company to the CFA Theater to present two performances of his newest work, SAN. Known for its fusion of traditional South African movement and street dance forms, the company has been praised by the New York Times for a “…sophistication and beauty in the way traditional African dance motifs…are woven together with more sinuous abstract movements.”

SAN celebrates and tells the story of the Khoi-San people, hunter-gatherers and aboriginal inhabitants of the Southern African plains, commonly referred to as Bushmen. Mantsoe writes:

“Restricted from the open land, which has slowly but consistently been converted to farmland or taken into possession for mining, the San have been silenced, fenced out, subjected to hangings intended to break their spirit, and endured the terrors of genocide… SAN asks how, in the face of change, which spreads like wild roots, we can sustain the freedom to express our sense of beauty, emotions and attitudes without shame or guilt of who we are.”

Interestingly, this past Thursday marked a major victory in the Khoi-San’s defense of their rights, when Botswana’s Court of Appeal revoked a 2010 ruling that had denied the Kalahari Bushmen access to water on their own lands. (More information on this legislation is available online here). 

The themes of SAN take on new meaning with this hopeful news, and this weekend’s performances by Compagnie Vincent Mantsoe should be especially moving in light of this important milestone.

Saturday, February 5, 8pm & Sunday, February 6, 3pm
Pre-performance talk by Debra Cash in the CFA Hall at 7:15pm before the Saturday performance
CFA Theater
$21, $18 seniors, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students, $8 Wesleyan students

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Spring Season at the CFA Announced

Dear Friends of the CFA,

This spring, when you travel to the CFA, you’ll see the world. Well, some of it, at least. Vincent Mantsoe will bring his Paris-based company to perform a work that features South African dance traditions infused with contemporary street dance forms. California-based companies Viver Brasil and Hālau o Keikiali‘i will bring the music and dance traditions of Bahia and Hawai‘i respectively, and DanceMasters Weekend will feature Guilford’s-own Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance. The company was a sensation at the Spoleto Festival last June and Miller is the winner of this year’s Emerging Choreographer Award.

Jazz figures prominently on the schedule with a concert by the legendary Charles Lloyd and his quartet in January and Sherrie Maricle’s DIVA, an all-female concert jazz orchestra, in April. Lloyd is best known for his seminal album Forest Flower, and his quartet will also feature Jason Moran, who recently won a MacArthur, on the piano. The Music Department will bring its Gamelan Orchestra together with the Wesleyan Ensemble Singers and University Orchestra to celebrate the music of legendary 20th-century composer Lou Harrison. In February, the Theater Department brings its alumnus Michael Rau ’05 to direct Sarah Ruhl’s contemporary farce Melancholy Play, and the playwright herself will be in residence early in February to meet with the cast and give a public talk.

The Zilkha Gallery will host a major exhibition of sculpture, photographs and video by Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff. His exhibition, Double Vision, will explore how unconscious projections from America’s colonial origins shape perceptions of its current reality.

Many of our majors are creating original works for their theses, and we encourage you to attend their performances and exhibitions as well. We invite you to meet the next generation of art-makers and participate in their visions.

It’s all here in the heart of Connecticut.

Pamela Tatge
Director, CFA

For complete details, visit the CFA website.

Eiko and Koma Continue Their “Living” Installation at the Walker Art Center

For those of you who were at the opening of Eiko and Koma’s Retrospective Project at the Zilkha Gallery last November, or saw Raven at the CFA this past July, I wanted to write to tell you that the Retrospective continued its journey last week with the opening of their installation, Naked, at the Walker Art Center in the Twin Cities on Tuesday, November 2nd. Naked is a living installation that Eiko and Koma have been working on for the past six months during their residency at the Park Avenue Armory. Eiko and Koma will perform Naked throughout the month of November, six days a week for an unbelievable six hours a day (with only a fifteen minute break)! The piece explores themes of nakedness, desire and the elasticity of time.

This is the first time that Eiko & Koma have created a living installation since Breath at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1998. Unlike the single body that was present in Breath, both Eiko & Koma will always be on view during Naked, in much longer exposure and closer proximity to audiences than they have ever allowed themselves.

Eiko and Koma described Naked in an interview with Walker Performing Arts Director Philip Bither:

“By coming back to live and move in a gallery, we hope to collapse the time passed since Breath, a time in which we have lingered as much as we have aged. We are inviting a close look at another one-month period of time in our bodies, saying to our audience: Linger, stay here with your eyes, live and kinetically observe how our bodies move towards death.” –Eiko & Koma on Naked, 2010

For more information, see these links…

A description of the project on Eiko and Koma’s Website

An write-up in Minneapolis’s Star-Tribune

From the Walker Art Center’s Blog

Navaratri Festival 2010

CFA Intern Lucy Strother talks with Professor B. Balasubrahmaniyan (Balu) about this week’s Navaratri Festival.

Tomorrow kicks off the 34th annual Navaratri Festival, celebrating the music and dance of India here at Wesleyan! Five days of performances (Wednesday, October 27 through Sunday, October 31) will offer audiences a wide range of events: concerts by distinguished musicians, dance showcases, a lecture by Wesleyan professors and a traditional Hindu ceremony. I spoke with Wesleyan professor and Navaratri organizer B. Balasubrahmaniyan (better known as Balu) about some of the upcoming festival highlights.

A unique aspect of Navaratri is its ability to integrate the past and present in its celebration of the rich historical traditions of music and dance in India, along with its promotion of important performers in India’s contemporary arts scene. Thursday night features a concert by sisters Ranjani and Gayatri, both widely acclaimed singers and violinists. Balu expressed his excitement for this concert, saying: “They have reached a very high caliber of musicianship in a short period and they are visiting Wesleyan for the first time.” Their performances are known for vitality and emotion and often incorporate an element of playful sibling rivalry that I am excited to witness in action!

Another highlight of Navaratri is sure to be when internationally renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain performs with sitarist Niladri Kumar Saturday night. Balu emphasized Zakir’s superstar status and his amazing ability to connect Indian music with music of other cultures and genres: “He is a top ranking, international artist and has worked with many Indian and non-Indian performers.” It is so thrilling to get the opportunity to see brilliant, world famous artists like Zakir here on campus.

People interested in taking a more active role in the festivities should attend the Natya Mela Dance Party/Showcase or the Saraswati Puja ceremony. Balu shared with me the meaning of Saraswati Puja, saying that the ceremony is dedicated to “offering our respects to the goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts. Students place their books and musicians place their musical instruments in front of the idol or picture of the goddess and get blessings. Anyone can participate and can bring their instruments and books in order to receive blessings.” This event is recommended for seniors who are writing a thesis…

Not only is Balu a major contributor in organizing and promoting Navaratri, he is also featured as a soloist on the concert line up. David Nelson, mridangam, and K.V.S. Vinay, violin, will join Balu Friday night for a concert that should not be missed!

The Full Lineup:
Colloquium–Weaving Sound and Image: Integrating Bharata Natyam and Carnatic Music,
B. Balasubrahmaniyan and Hari Krishnan
Wednesday, October 27, 4:15pm
CFA Hall 
Free admission
Ranjani and Gayatri: Carnatic Music of South India
Thursday, October 28, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Tickets: $15 A, $12 B, $6 C
B. Balasubrahmaniyan: Vocal Music of South India
Friday, October 29, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Tickets: $12 A, $10 B, $6 C
Natya Mela
(Indian Dance Party/Showcase)
Saturday, October 30, 2pm
World Music Hall
Free Admission
Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar
Saturday, October 30 at 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Tickets: $28, $23 B, $8 C

Saraswati Puja (Hindu Ceremony)
Sunday, October 31, 11am
World Music Hall
Free admission

PRICE KEY: $A General; $B Seniors, Wesleyan Faculty & Staff, Non-Wesleyan Students; $C Wesleyan Students

Life Emergent at Fall Faculty Dance Concert

Lucy Strother, CFA Intern, introduces Life Emergent, a work that will appear on the program of this weekend’s Fall Faculty Dance Performance.

Last spring, Katja Kolcio, Associate Professor of Dance, and Manju Hingorani, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, co-taught an innovative course entitled Body Languages: Choreographing Biology (MBB/DANC108). The course explored the intersection of science and dance, investigating how we can model microscopic scientific processes through dance and movement that we couldn’t otherwise visualize.  Students studied material comparable to an Intro Bio course, while engaging in the creative process of collaboratively choreographing and performing dance. Sometimes the students depicted a particular process or concept in a fairly straightforward way (for example, “The Mitosis Dance,” in which students used their bodies to illustrate mitosis), while other times their movements were merely inspired by a more general scientific idea. Students observed that at the course’s beginning, they typically learned the science information and subsequently applied it to their dance. Yet by the end of the semester, the students felt they were studying the two subjects simultaneously; the two mediums had been successfully intertwined. Although the participating students faced significant challenges in integrating these two disciplines, it’s clear that their efforts resulted in discovery and accomplishment. Kolcio and Hingorani plan to further develop the issues addressed in Choreographing Biology in future offerings of the course.

Additionally, Hingorani and Kolcio were commissioned to co-create an interdisciplinary work entitled Life Emergent, which will premiere on Friday, October 22, as part of the Fall Faculty Dance Performance. Life Emergent will be performed by Wesleyan students, including several of the students who were enrolled in Choreographing Biology. The work further investigates the intersection of dance and molecular biology and specifically concerns the evolution of life in light of recent advances in the development of synthetic cells. I recently attended a rehearsal for Life Emergent and was struck by how collaborative the preparations for performance were. Although the rehearsal was directed by Kolcio and Hingorani, various student dancers choreographed sections of the piece themselves and relayed their ideas and moves to the others. Students then received feedback from both their instructors and each other and slight amendments were made. Throughout the rehearsal, the students and instructors transformed countless thoughts and suggestions into a more polished, cohesive dance. It will be exciting to see Life Emergent in its final form this Friday!

Fall Faculty Dance Concert:

Friday & Saturday, October 22 & 23

8pm
Patricelli ’92 Theater

Tickets: $8 A, $8 B, $6 C

This Weekend: Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

This weekend, the CFA hosts two performances by the outstanding Liz Lerman Dance Exchange that are not to be missed! The company returns to Wesleyan with brand new pieces using dance to comment on issues of food, land, and sustainability.

The performance features the work of two of the company’s younger choreographers. Cassie Meador is an award-winning dance-maker interested in the intersection of environmental issues and dance. Drift takes the audience on a humorous and wistful journey as a corn field in Cassie’s hometown in Georgia is first transformed into a Piggly Wiggly and then converted into a place of worship. Both the music and movement vocabulary draws on American popular forms of the past 100 years, and makes for a work of poetic and thoughtful dance/theater performed with the added nuances of a multi-generational company.

Meador will also perform excerpts from her newest piece, How to Lose A Mountain, a work designed to reconnect us with the sources of our energy by taking us from her home in DC to a strip-mined mountain in Virginia.

Finally, if you’re in the mood for an athletic, high energy movement piece then Blueprints of Relentless Nature, by Keith Thompson, is for you. Thompson danced with Tricia Brown for ten years – his choreography literally takes over every corner of the stage in a work that manages to be both abstract and celebrate the humanity of each of his dancers.

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Featuring Drift by Cassie Meador
Friday and Saturday, October 1 & 2, 8pm

CFA Theater
Pre-performance talk by Cassie Meador and Keith Thompson prior to Friday’s performance at 7:15pm in the CFA Hall
$21 General Admission, $18 Wesleyan Faculty & Staff/Seniors/Non-Wesleyan Students, $8 Wesleyan Students