UnEven Ground: Faculty Dance Concert February 20, 2009

UnEven Ground: Faculty Dance Concert
Dr. Mary Lynn Babcock, Artistic Director

February 19, 20, 21 @ 8:00 p.m. and February 22 @2:30 p.m.
University Theatre
$10.00 Adults; $7.50 Students, UNT Faculty/Staff, Seniors
Box Office – 940-565-2428

The University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre presents UnEven Ground, The Faculty Dance Concert -- an evening comprised of 6 dance works by UNT dance faculty featuring No More Dry Tears, by Edmond Giles, former dancer and choreographer for Dallas Black Dance Theatre. This year’s dance concert brings exciting aspects of design and varied multi-media, showcasing powerful dance works that were created within a strong collaborative spirit.

No More Dry Tears, choreographed in 2000 by Edmond Giles is a large group dance based on the idea of the human spirit’s innate drive to move on in the world in spite of life’s hardships. The powerful spatial group designs interchanging and building against the gospel cadences of Sweet Honey in the Rock brings resolution to struggle in all its varied manifestations. The dance students in the UNT Department of Dance and Theatre learned the dance in Fall 2008 during a nine-day residency by the choreographer, Edmond Giles. Katricia Eaglin, dancer for Dallas Black Dance Theatre and UNT alum has been Rehearsal Director.

Migration (premiere) by Ellie Leonhardt is a group dance that is set to the musical score of Shahrokh Yadegarii, an Iranian-American electronic music composer based in San Diego. The dance, in its Zen like movement vocabulary, is simple yet sculpted to take the audience on a contemplative journey in which the dancers surrender to the migration of life. Abstract and poetic the dance uses movement for movement sake and the process of theme and development to invoke a delicate and encompassed pathway from "here" to "there" across the earth.

Choking the Earth? Just Take Off Those Clothes and Join the Water in D-Flat (Premiere) by Shelley Cushman is a collaborative group work with eight dancers and music composition/remix by Jesse Coulter of the hip hop band, Vortexas. This work juxtaposes the everyday hustle and bustle of the human footprint left on the earth with the beauty of the healing earth we continue to destroy. Ultimately we will all be diluted into the earth’s water and swim with the whales who “sing” in D-flat, the key of the earth.

'Pieces of Life" (Premiere) by Teresa Cooper looks at events that happen in a person's life that seem to have no connections, but in the end become pieces of a master puzzle that fit together. Humor, joy, and great sadness make up the landscape of this piece with live music composed by UNT music faculty Christopher Deane.

Strings of Change (2008) by student choreographer, McKenzie Krempa is a group piece set to a medley of songs by the group Rachel's. The piece presents a metaphoric expression on the tumultuous journey of change—overcome, confrontation, and ultimate acceptance. Powerfully dynamic movements intertwined with a tensioned use of space reveal variegated emotions inherent in existing in a world faced with many difficulties.

Earth’n Hand (rework of Human Kind 2008) by Mary Lynn Babcock is a poignant inter-disciplinary collaborative dance work integrating digital media, literature, and composed music. This dance shifts perspective from ‘I’ of the human experience to ‘I” of the earth. Through the echo of one’s footprints made on earth, the earth responds; through the captivating musical composition/remix of Jesse Coulter the dancers cascade into lifts and falls, through the real into the virtual world of dance we are moved, and moved, and moved.

Official Website: http://www.danceandtheatre.unt.edu