Life Emergent at Fall Faculty Dance Concert

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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

Chopin@200 Concert Series Starts This Week

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What follows is a a blog entry by Wesleyan Senior and CFA Intern Lucy Strother:

This weekend kicks off with the first two concerts of Wesleyan’s Chopin@200 Festival, which celebrates the 200th birthday of the beloved composer, Frederic Francois Chopin! The concert series, a brainchild of professor and pianist Neely Bruce, will feature works by Chopin, his contemporaries, and composers who were influenced by him.

Neely Bruce describes how the festival came into existence:

In the mid-1990s I began systematically to relearn the piano repertory of my youth. I realized that Chopin, whose music I had always liked but to whom I had not paid a great deal of attention, was emerging as one of my favorite composers. If you play the piano because you enjoy the physical sensation, nothing feels better to a pianist than playing Chopin, so it was both instructive and fun to practice the music. I was also struck with his originality. Pieces that had baffled me for years started revealing their secrets—most notably the Polonaise-Fantasie. (I’m still waiting to figure out the scherzos.) I began to teach a music major seminar in Chopin, first in 2003 and again in 2008.

2010 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin, and this semester I’m teaching the seminar for the third time. I asked my pianist colleagues if they would like to join me in playing some concerts. All of them responded, and the events quickly expanded their focus. 2010 is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann, the first critic to recognize Chopin’s genius in an unqualified, enthusiastic manner. He was also one of Chopin’s few close friends who was not a Pole. My pianist colleagues all wanted to include not just Chopin and Schumann, but compositions by composers in the intervening two centuries who were influenced by Chopin’s unique mix of strict classical training as a composer, immersion in Polish folk music, relentless experimentation with musical form and harmony, and undying popularity. (He may be the most popular composer who ever lived. Beethoven would seem to be his only competition.) So we have Liszt and Debussy and Szymanowski and George Crumb and Radiohead—and this is just the tip of the iceberg. The worlds of American pop music and jazz and even boogie-woogie are also influenced by Chopin (one of Jelly Roll Morton’s favorites).

So we are all going to get together, with eight of our students and former students, and our colleague David Westfall at The Hartt School, and Wesleyan alumnus Donald Berman, and have a blast playing for each other! We hope lots of people will join us in the audience.

This is an exciting opportunity to see dynamic performances by both Wesleyan piano faculty and talented piano students!

Chopin @ 200: Concert One

Saturday, October 9, 8pm, 
Crowell Concert Hall
$5, $4 Wesleyan Students

Chopin @ 200: Concert Two
Sunday, October 10, 3pm, 
Crowell Concert Hall
$5, $4 Wesleyan Students

More Chopin @ 200 concerts on November 5, 11 & 12.

This Weekend: Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

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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

Le Vent du Nord

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What follows is a a blog entry by Wesleyan Senior Donovan Arthen:

If you are a music lover, then you are in for a treat this Friday night at 8pm; Le Vent Du Nord will be gracing the Crowell Concert Hall stage. The group is a Québécois folk band that plays traditional music from the region as well as contemporary compositions. They have been making music together since the summer of 2002, and have been wowing audiences all over since their debut.

Their members are all multi-instrumentalists and singers. Oliver Demers, initially a classically and jazz trained violinist who’s devoted the last ten years to mastering traditional Québécois folk technique, and brings a strong and melodic sound. Simon Beaudry is a guitarist who comes from a strong family background in folk tradition adds a driving rhythm to the groups music. Réjean Brunet has been playing traditional music since he was a boy and brings the harmonic sound of accordion style instruments. Finally, Nicolas Boulerice plays the piano and the hurdy-gurdy, a medieval era instrument that adds a unique and engaging sound to the group’s music.

I first saw them in the summer of 2008 at the Old Songs Music Festival in New York State, and I was thoroughly impressed by their energy, talent and personality both as a group and as individuals. Their performances are both beautiful and exciting. If you have even the slightest inkling to see what these fantastic musicians can do I encourage you to go to the box office and get a ticket for just $6 (which is practically stealing for a performance like this!) and maybe an extra one for your friend, and come to their 8pm performance in the Crowell Concert Hall! There is also another opportunity to experience this talented group, through an open jam session from 7-9pm in the Daltry Room (room 003) on the basement level of the rehearsal hall building (the short concrete building next to Crowell). Hope to see at both events! Come and get a taste of one of the richest folk music traditions in North America!

Le Vent du Nord
Friday, September 24, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk by Alec McLane at 7:15pm
$22 General; $18 Seniors/Wesleyan Faculty & Staff/Non-Wesleyan Students; $6 Wesleyan Students

Jam Session with Le Vent du Nord
Thursday, September 23 at 7pm
Daltry Room (Rehearsal Hall 003)
Free admission

Congratulations to Robert Battle

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In case you haven’t heard, I’m writing to let you know some extraordinary news about a longtime friend of DanceMasters, Robert Battle. Ten days ago, Robert was named the new Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater!  See the coverage in the New York Times.

Robert has been in the running for the position for two years, and we are all so excited that he has been entrusted with the leadership of this extraordinary American cultural institution. Robert performed his signature work, “Takedeme,” at the very first DanceMasters Weekend in 2000, when he was a member of the Parsons Dance Company. In 2003, he was awarded the first-ever Wesleyan Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award, and he performed with his then fledgling dance company, Battleworks. Since then, he has never missed a single DanceMasters Weekend, and his classes are often the first to fill up.

I know you will all join me in congratulating Robert, and believe it or not, you’ll have the chance to congratulate him in person this summer. The final performances of Battleworks Dance Company will occur at Wesleyan on July 15 and 16. Sadly, the company will need to be dissolved as Robert takes the helm of the Ailey company. He’ll be performing some of his signature works, including Takedeme, Ella and Juba.

Here’s hoping we’ll see you this summer for these and other great performances and talks, presented in collaboration with the CREC Center for Creative Youth.

CFA Theater
July 15, 16 at 8pm

CFA Student Profile: Emily Troll ’10

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What follows is the fourth in a series of profiles of Wesleyan students by Alexandra Provo ‘10, the CFA’s Arts Administration Intern.

A few weeks ago I sat down with Emily Troll ’10, a music major and accomplished fiddler originally from Boston, to talk about her time at Wesleyan and her plans for the future. Emily is perhaps best known on campus as a founder of Wesleyan’s series of student-run contra dances, along with Anna Roberts-Gevalt ’09, Josh Van Vliet ’09, and Hannah Bary ’09. Contra dance is a traditional American folk dance form featuring a live band intended for dancers of all levels. A caller teaches participants the steps, and every thirty seconds or so the dancers switch partners.

Before coming to Wesleyan, Emily was an experienced contra dancer and fiddler. After being introduced to the form at the age of twelve, she started playing at smaller, low-key dances. Now she travels to gigs throughout New England, though admittedly there is a little less time for that during the school year.

Part of the reason for this is that she is busy making and teaching music within the Wesleyan and greater Middletown communities. The collaborative aspect of contra dance is an apt metaphor for Emily’s interests in connecting people across and within communities. For her senior thesis, Calliope House, she brought together a panel of fiddlers from across New England to discuss theories and methods of practicing, interspersing questions with mini jam sessions.

Her interest in practicing and bringing people together also comes through in her work in the Middletown community. Early in her Wesleyan career, Emily volunteered at Green Street Arts Center, and this year, she helped organize Snap Crackle Pop!, a percussive dance show that brings together students from Green Street and Wesleyan dance groups. She has also been working in the after school program at McDonough School in the North End, something she hopes to continue next year since she will be staying on in Middletown. Lately, she has also been teaching music to several six-year-olds living in her off-campus neighborhood, a somewhat unique situation but one that has enriched her own music and expanded her Wesleyan experience. “I’m happy to be out there serving as an ambassador for the Wesleyan community,” she says. “I’ve been able to really be there for people, to get involved.”

Tonight, you can catch Emily and other senior music majors, Lindsay Wright’ 10 and Gabriel Furtado ’10, at the Senior Highlights Concert in the Daniel Family Commons. This Friday, Emily and the Wesleyan Megaband will host the last contra dance of the semester at Beckham Hall.

Senior Highlights Concert
Usdan Connections Series
Tuesday, May 4, 7pm
Daniel Family Commons

Contra Dance
Friday, May 7, 8-11 pm
Beckham Hall

A Good Week for Improvistatory Music: Bennie Maupin and Anthony Braxton

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This week’s blog is written by Adam Kubota , Press and Marketing Coordinator at the Center for the Arts.

As many people in the community know, in addition to my work at the CFA, I spend nights playing the bass in various musical projects throughout the region. So, as a musician who improvises, as well as someone whose job it is to promote events at the CFA, I am happy to write about how two major figures in musical improvisation, Anthony Braxton and Bennie Maupin, are performing at Wesleyan this week.

On Thursday in Crowell Concert Hall, Professor of Music Anthony Braxton leads his Large Ensemble, which includes many guest performers. Professor Braxton is productive as ever these days having recently gone into the studio to record his opera Trillium E and is now looking forward to special performances this summer in celebration of his 65th birthday. To augment his lineup for Thursday night, Anthony has invited some major talents in the improvisatory scene including:

-Guitarist Tom Crean MA ’04

-Guitarist Kevin O’Neil, who received his MA from Wesleyan and his Ph.D from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom

-Guitarist/bassist and New England Conservatory faculty member Joe Morris

-Drummer Tyshawn Sorey, a rising force on the worldwide improvisatory music scene, a faculty member at the New School University and a current Wesleyan graduate student

I will also be performing and feel lucky to play with these musicians.

On Saturday night, clarinetist/saxophonist/composer Bennie Maupin will lead his trio at Crowell Concert Hall for a concert that is part of Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend. Performing with Mr. Maupin will be legendary bassist Buster Williams and drummer Michael Stephans.

Ethnomusicology Ph.D Candidate Bill Carbone wrote about it in this week’s edition of the New Haven Advocate and provides some excellent background on Mr. Maupin’s legacy:

Even among jazz fans, saxophonist, bass-clarinetist and flutist Bennie Maupin is not a household name. First recorded in 1965, Maupin was a tad late to the “golden age” of jazz, arriving about the time the Blue Note label’s cohesive, well-packaged sessions and stark, modernist album covers gave way to afros, electric guitars, altissimo saxophone wailing, funk and the mainstream music industry.

In 1969, Maupin joined a large ensemble led by Miles Davis at Columbia studios. After some masterful slicing and dicing at the hands of Teo Macero, the music from these first sessions became Davis’s seminal work Bitches Brew. Though much is rightfully made of the album’s layered percussion and electronic keyboards, the woody tone of Maupin’s bass clarinet is a perfect companion to Davis’s own warmth and is certainly one of the recording’s more haunting and defining elements.

At the same time, Maupin began exploring other territory in Mwandishi, a group founded by keyboardist Herbie Hancock. Mwandishi embraced popular African-American music culture elements and the avant-garde, often intermingling the two comfortably within extended jams. However, Maupin has undoubtedly been most heard as a member of Hancock’s next project, Headhunters. That band’s hard-grooving 1973 eponymous debut, which features the jam session classic “Chameleon,” is among a fistful of the best-selling jazz recordings in history. And I’ve only gotten to 1973.

Maupin, of course, continued performing and recording at a feverish pace. With the exception of a few late ’70s recordings, Maupin didn’t record as a leader until the 21st century. His four albums on Cryptogramophone Records are both inside and out; in short, they reflect Maupin’s assimilation of nearly four decades worth of music.

Bennie Maupin Trio
With Buster Williams, bass
and Michael Stephans, drums
Saturday, May 1, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
$18 General; $16 Seniors/Wesleyan Faculty & Staff/Non-Wesleyan Students;
$6 Wesleyan Students

Anthony Braxton Large Ensemble
Thursday, April 29, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Free Admission

Earth Day 2010: Joining Art and Science

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This Thursday marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an annual day of environmental awareness. Events are happening all across campus, from a student-organized sleep-out on Foss Hill to a Connecticut trail maintenance outing this weekend to the bi-weekly farmer’s market that has become such a staple feature of campus life.

The CFA is also hosting several events. In recent years, we have become increasingly interested in exploring environmental issues. As you may know, with Feet to the Fire we began a campus-wide initiative to investigate climate change using art as a catalyst. Our intent was not only to shed light on a matter of urgent societal concern but also to experiment with how science and art intersect and inform one another.

In celebration of Earth Day and in the spirit of Feet to the Fire, the CFA and Environmental Studies have teamed up to present a panel discussing the role of the arts in illuminating environmental issues. Panelists include Marda Kirn, founder and executive director of EcoArts; Cassie Meador, member of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange; Godfrey Bourne, associate professor of biology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis and director of the CEIBA Biological Station in Guyana; and our own Barry Chernoff, professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Program. We’ll also be premiering Paul Horton’s 30-minute documentary film Connections Within a Fragile World, about Chernoff’s and Meador’s co-taught course which took place in Guyana.

Environmental awareness is also featured in this weekend’s presentation of Reggie Wilson’s The Good Dance—dakar/brooklyn. While The Good Dance, which explores the secular and religious traditions of river cultures in Central Africa and the Mississippi Delta, does not take a specific stance on environmental issues, it does feature the striking visual image of over 300 plastic water bottles on stage. Continuing our collaboration with student environmentalist groups on campus, the CFA is collaborating with the TAP THAT! bottled water awareness campaign, a program of the Wesleyan’s Environmental Organizers Network (EON). During the Q&A sessions following the performances, EON will distribute the water from the bottles to the audience and provide information about bottled water in the lobby. After the performance, EON will reuse the bottles in an art installation in the Usdan Campus Center, after which all of the bottles will be recycled.

Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration:
Joining Art and Science to Engage Environmental Issues
Thursday, April 22, 8pm
CFA Hall
Free Admission

Reggie Wilson / Fist & Heel Performance Group:
The Good Dance—dakar/brooklyn
Friday & Saturday, April 23 & 24, 8pm
CFA Theater
Pre-performance talk by Allison Hurd ’11 on Friday, April 23 at 7:15pm, CFA Hall (formerly CFA Cinema)

For more Earth Day events happening this week, see the calendar organized by SAGES, Wesleyan’s Sustainability Advisory Group for Environmental Stewardship.