April 23-25
Collegeville, Pa
The Ursinus College Dance Company presents an eclectic spring program,Roots and Wings, April 23 through 25, at 7:30 p.m. in the Lenfest Theater in the Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center.
The program offers five dance pieces featuring Ursinus student dancers and musicians by Philadelphia based African dance choreographers Jeannine Osayande and Ira Bond with the Dunya Performing Arts Company; Chicago based choreographer, Billy Siegenfeld; student choreographer Rosie Davis-Aubrey and the work of dance faculty, Karen Clemente and Jeanine McCain.
Tickets are $5 general admission, and $2 for students. Tickets can be reserved at the Ursinus Box Office, www.ursinus.edu/tickets.
The Box Office phone number is 610-409-3030.
A talk-back with the audience is featured Thursday night, April 23.
The program includes:
Fragment
Choreography by Jeanine McCain, (dance faculty) in collaboration with the performers
Original score by Garrett Hope
Ursinus dance program faculty member Jeanine McCain and her student collaborators presentFragment, a modern dance piece that investigates the idea of ancestral lineage, and how from that foundation we grow wings to create our own paths in life. With an original score by former Ursinus visiting faculty Garrett Hope, along with the integration of video technology in the performance,Fragment creates a landscape that searches our own bodies for the untold stories of the past, while looking forward to a place of hope for the future.
I’ve Got Your Number
Choreography and vocal arrangement:
Billy Siegenfeld, guest artist from Chicago’s Jump Rhythm Jazz Project
Rehearsal direction: Jordan Batta
Music: “I’ve Got Your Number” (music: Cy Coleman; lyrics: Carolyn Leigh; vocals: Nancy Wilson)
In the first a cappella section of this piece, five people, initially in isolation, start scatting rhythms to themselves. The first singer starts vocalizing a groove alone. She turns it into a rhythmic walk, spiced with a few off beats. Then she shares the groove with another; when they start moving they expand the first walk and the off beats. Across stage, another soloist starts up; then two more join in. At the end of these samplings the singer-movers look to the others to sense whether their isolated selves want to transform into the beginnings of community. When the music comes, what they’ve sensed turns into what they want.
Klipped Wings
Choreography by Rosie Davis Aubrey, student choreographer
The piece is a homage to those who have paved the way for African Americans in the past (the roots) and an encouragement to those who continue to pave the way today (the wings). Davis-Aubrey says, “It is my ‘I have a dream’ speech, my ‘March on Washington,’ my ‘Selma to Montgomery’ March. It is a piece that not only celebrates the beauty of being an individual but it also explores the issue of when being an individual is not quite enough. What happens when instead of ‘I’ being the answer, the solution becomes ‘we’”?
Earthbound Flight
Choreography: Karen Clemente, dance faculty
This piece, danced by a quartet of Ursinus College dance students, celebrates the work of jazz musician John Coltrane in his arrangement of the Rogers and Hammerstein song, “My Favorite Things.” Additionally, it is a collaboration with the Ursinus College Music Department, under the direction of faculty member, Holly Hubbs and four music students. In the development of the piece, the dancers and musicians explored their own favorite things, recognizing how little time we have to really enjoy them in the rush of our lives. There is a mix of improvisation and set movement structures in the dance and music to be performed, reflecting the jazz idiom of Coltrane. Throughout the duration of the work, the piece drives onward, bound to the earth from which its rhythms have come, but getting ready to take off—to find new avenues for expression.
Hands Up, Dancing For Justice: A Tribute to Amadou Diallo
(Premiere 2000, Recreation 2015)
Choreography: Jeannine Osayande and Ira Bond, Philadelphia based African dance artists
Live Drumming performances by the Dunya Performing Arts Company
The piece is a tribute to Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea who was shot and killed by police officers in New York City in 1999. The dance links to the present time with references to Dancing for Justice Philly Dance Protest/Black Lives Matter 2014 and ultimately ends with a celebration of the human spirit through the lively and full-spirited African dance and drumming ensembles.
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