The Lund Theater has been in heavy use this week. The full programs of the Spring Dance Concert are moving smoothly through Tech and into the first runs of the pieces. Student choreographers have been shopping for costumes and finalizing music and lighting design choices. The faculty will select the program for REDCAT this week as well.
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Students are working diligently to complete assignments and final projects for their Critical Studies classes. Students are required to take 48 units of Critical Studies credit in the Undergraduate program in addition to their Dance School courses, or métier studies.
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With the Spring Dance Concert performances only three weeks away, the School of Dance is humming with the efforts of collaboration. Tuesday's Showings Class will be a forum for the viewing of those pieces selected for the concert, after which the faculty will meet to determine the content and order for program A and program B. A production meeting will be held with the Faculty Production Team, the Production Manager, and the student choreographers to discuss the production schedule and technical needs for each piece. The student choreographers will be in the Lund Theater, working with their designers from the School of Dance and School of Theater establishing lighting cues by Thursday and Friday. Students holding crew positions have their first calls to work to support the production.
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"Room in Me" choreographed by Sung-Yun Park will be presented at the California Institute of the Arts Sharon Disney Lund theatre April 10, 11, 12, 2008 at 8:30pm. Sung-Yun's quirky sense of individualism is translated through her dancers. "Our inner child remains with us all of our lives. No matter how old we are, we are all children at heart. Among many benefits of freeing our inner child, one can be a letting our creativity shine. My freed inner child is the choreographer of my thesis concert and I hope inner children of my audiences will enjoy it." For show information and ticket reservation, click here.
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A mysterious video projection will catch your attention at the very beginning of this piece called "An Unfinished Story," presented by The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance and choreographed by Yen-Lin Chou on April 10, 11, 12, 2008 at 7:30pm . The piece unfolds as an ensemble of seven dancers investigate experiences of separations. Yen-Lin uses contact improvisation in order to develop her movement, creating sensitivity and interconnectedness between dancers. The choreography combines with abstract works of video and music create a unique and compelling environment. For show information and ticket reservation, click here.
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The faculty of the School of Dance will be viewing over 35 student choreographed works for the Spring Dance Auditions on Tuesday. Artists from the Schools of Music, Theater, Art, and Film/Video will be present to view the works for potential collaboration opportunities. All the pieces will be considered on design, organization, content, creativity, and composition. Approximately 14 of the pieces will be selected to accompany the two faculty pieces by Stephanie Nugent and Glen Eddy, and the Graduate piece created by guest choreographer Mira Kingsley, to create the two full programs of the Spring Dance Concert. This concert is an opportunity for our students to participate in a fully produced concert either as a performer, choreographer, designer, collaborator, or production crew member. Program selection will be posted by Friday, and the students will have approximately five weeks to prepare for the performances in the last week in April.
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"For What?" MFA II Thesis Concert by EunJu Chung opens this week. This production explores the conflict between humanity's inside (mind) that represents thoughtful action and humanity's outside (body) that functions on a more primal level. The show runs Thursday, March 13 through Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 7:30pm. General admission: $7. Alumni: $3. Students, faculty, staff and seniors: $2. To reserve tickets, call 661.253.7800 or write to tickets@calarts.edu.
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The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance is delighted to have been selected as a participant in the National Endowment for the Arts initiative aimed at the preservation of American masterpieces and looks forward to working with David Gordon. He will be on campus the week of March 10-14, 2008 and will be returning during the Fall semester, 2008. Students from CalArts will be working with the Pick Up Performance Company in the restaging and touring of Trying Times.
He has created more than 100 works over the past 45 years. Since 1971 his primary vehicle for creating work has been David Gordon's/Pick Up Company (incorporating and changing its name in 1978 to Pick Up Performance Company). He has also created work for ABT, The Dance Theater of Harlem, Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project as well as numerous companies in Europe. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1981 and 1987 two Bessie Awards in 1984 and 1991 and two Obie Awards in 1992 and 1994. His work Trying Times, 1982, was recently selected as an American Masterpiece by the National Endowment for the Arts.
David Gordon was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, the loosely affiliated group of experimental artists including Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainer, that launched an artistic revolution from the basement of Judson Church on Washington Square, New York City, in 1962. Prior to Judson he danced in the company of James Waring. From 1966-1970 he danced with Yvonne Rainer, and from 1970-76, the quartet of Brown, Paxton, Rainer and Gordon toured the country as Grand Union.
In the 1980's, in addition to Trying Times, Gordon was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival to create The Photographer, based on the life and career of Eadweard Muybridge. He was invited by Baryshnikov to create several pieces for ABT, some of which were televised nationally as David Gordon's Made in the U.S.A. In 1991 Gordon created The Mysteries And What's So Funny?, starring Velda Setterfiled, his wife and artistic partner since 1960, as Marcel Duchamp. Continuing to interrogate "What is Art?" the piece referenced Gordon's memory of an exam once given him by a favorite art teacher, Ad Reinhardt, which asked three questions: "What is art?" "What is is?" and "What is what?" With music by Philip Glass and set design by Red Grooms, this work was awarded both a Bessie and an Obie. In recent years, Gordon has adapted works from several playwrights including Shakespeare, Dancing Henry Five, 2004, Aristophanes, Aristophanes in Birdonia, 2006, a staging of Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs, and Uncivil Wars: Collaborating With Brecht and Eisler, based on the play The Roundheads and the Pointheads by Bertholt Brecht and Hanns Eisler.
By Ed Groff
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The Spring semester reviews are filling the schedule this week. All of the mentoring faculty meet with every student in the School of Dance, where the progress of the student is discussed. Each present faculty member shares their comments and observations about the student in his/her course of instruction. The faculty not present provide written reviews which are read aloud during the meeting. Each student brings in a written self-evaluation which is also read aloud. This process of exchange gives each student the opportunity to be recognized for his/her accomplishments, and offered feedback on where he/she can continue to develop.
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In a delightful film and performance mash-up, Mitchell Rose combines a selection of his award-winning comic short films with original performance pieces that feature choreographed audience participation at REDCAT this Thursday. For more information, click here.
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