VCU Dance Live

For VCU Dance, 2008-2009 shimmered with creativity and excitement: concerts packed with new work by students and faculty; film screenings; festival recognitions; and presentations of nationally and internationally known guest artists.

Antares Danza lit up Richmond
A National Endowment for the Arts grant provided crucial support to a one-week residency by Antares Danza Contemporanea, based in Hermosillo, Mexico, at VCU Dance. The residency encompassed company director Miguel Mancillas teaching modern dance technique to VCU Dance majors from October 20-24, 2008, as well as teaching a master class at the Richmond Ballet on October 20. Additionally, Mancillas and the members of Antares presented a lecture-demonstration at the Latin Ballet of Virginia on Saturday, October 25 for an audience of community members, and students and members of the Latin Ballet and Henrico Center for the Arts.

At the Grace Street Theater on October 24 & 25, 2008, Antares performed Tu Hombro ("Your Shoulder"), the latest work by Artistic Director Miguel Mancillas, in which the metaphor of the shoulder, with three true joints and two false, translates to human behavior as portrayed through demanding physicality and intense expressiveness. The Antares dancers seared the stage with their honesty and gorgeously passionate performances, when none of them left the stage and none of them flagged. Such dedicated intensity kept the audience riveted during the entire work.

VCU Dance majors triumphed at Mid-Atlantic American College Dance Festival
VCU Dance participated in the Mid-Atlantic Region American College Dance Festival (ACDF), March 18-21, 2009, held at Hollins University. Fourteen students and two faculty members traveled to Roanoke, VA , where the students performed and took classes and the faculty (Christian Von Howard and Lea Marshall) taught classes. The Department presented two works, De Materie, choreographed by Christian Von Howard, and Two-Sided, choreographed by senior Danielle Currica, for adjudication during the festival.

Out of five adjudication concerts containing approximately 50 dances choreographed by students, faculty and guest artists from universities around the region (Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C.), both works presented by VCU Dance were chosen by a process of blind adjudication for inclusion in the festival's culminating gala performance, consisting of 12 works in total. In addition to selection for the gala, both works received enthusiastic, insightful feedback from the three festival adjudicators--acknowledged professionals in the dance field.

From strength to strength
In addition to Antares Danza and the excitement at ACDF, the Department staged two blockbuster senior project concerts, a student concert, and VCU Dance NOW, a concert of new and recent work by VCU Dance faculty and guest artist Gerri Houlihan. On April 3 & 4, New York-based Monica Bill Barnes & Company illuminated the Grace Street Theater stage with Suddenly Summer Somewhere, a critically-acclaimed work created by Barnes in part during her spring, 2007 residency at VCU.

And coming up...
Check back soon for the Department's exciting 2009-2010 season announcement, and look for new guest artist presentations and information on the 2010 Mid Atlantic American College Dance Festival, to be hosted by VCU Dance! Audition dates for admission in the 2010-2011 year will also be announced shortly.

Have a great summer!

VCU Dance will present 7 Stages, the Spring, 2009 Senior Project Dance Concert on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 23, 24, and 25 at 8:00 pm at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street. Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for students with a valid VCU I.D. and can be reserved beginning April 13 by calling the Grace Street Theater box office at (804)-828-2020.

Nearing the end of a four-year academic journey through kinesthetic expression, seven dance majors (Danielle Currica, Meredith Davis, Ryan Drosche, Glen Lewis, Katharine Nace, Casey Royer, Megan Thompson) culminate their transformation from dance student to emerging dance artist by creating seven works that investigate different stages of life. Traveling; mourning; relationships; family comfort and support; dreams; spirituality; and earthly grounded movement each frame the seven points of view expressed in 7 Stages. Though individualistic in thought, expression, and movement, all seven choreographers invite audiences to relate and reflect on their own stages of life.

7 Stages is the tenth event of the VCU Dance 2008-2009 Season, a thrilling year of concerts, film screenings, master classes and more. The VCU Dance 2008-2009 Season is made possible in part by funding graciously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New England Foundation for the Arts, and VCUarts.

Click here for full press release and description of works.

VCU Dance presents a Community Master Class with Monica Bill Barnes
Modern dance class open to experienced dancers aged 16 and up.

Monday, March 30, 2009
6:45-8:15 pm

Hosted by The Richmond Ballet
407 East Canal Street
Richmond, VA

$5 per student (cash or check)
Sign up in the lobby beginning at 6:15 pm.

For more information, contact Lea Marshall at VCU Dance
804-828-3843

"...one of the wittiest young choreographers around." -The Village Voice

Download flyer here.

VCU Dance 2008-2009 presents
MONICA BILL BARNES & COMPANY

New York-based company “blends sadness and hilarity” says The New York Times

VCU Dance presents Monica Bill Barnes & Company in Suddenly Summer Somewhere, at VCU’s Grace Street Theatre on Friday & Saturday, April 3 & 4 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $20/$10 VCU students with valid ID and can be reserved beginning Monday, March 23 by calling the Grace Street Theatre Box Office at (804) 828-2020.

Based in New York, dance artist Monica Bill Barnes visited VCU Dance for a seven-week teaching residency in spring, 2007. At the time she was in the process of creating the two-person, evening-length dance work that became Suddenly Summer Somewhere and premiered in New York at Danspace Project St. Mark’s Church in 2008. According to The New York Times, "The witty Ms. Barnes, a master of the dance equivalent of a sly guffaw, blends sadness and hilarity." The Dance Department is delighted to bring Monica and her company back to Richmond for a full-scale production of her work at the Grace Street Theater.

Two small women stand on top of a dining room table. In silence, carefully navigating the table top, they send silverware crashing to the floor. Simultaneously hilarious and painful, Suddenly Summer Somewhere explores how the passage of time affects the collective lives of two people.

Says critic Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times, "Suddenly Summer Somewhere barrels along once it hits the floor, a thing of manic, mugging grins; lumbering embraces; and big, juicy syncopated sprints through space that seems to have just opened out. Suddenly love has pushed through zany, witty pratfalls for the body and the soul."

Excerpt from recent work Another Parade

For full press release, click here.

VCU Dance 2008-2009 presents
DANCE ON CAMERA II Film Screening: Selections from New York Dance Films Association

VCU Dance presents Dance on Camera II, a screening of four short dance films selected from the New York Dance Films Association, Dance on Camera Festival, 2008 and 2009. These films, never before screened in Richmond, will be presented at VCU’s Grace Street Theatre on Tuesday, March 17 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $5 and are available at the door. For more information, call the Grace Street Theatre Box Office at (804) 828-2020.

Curated by VCU Dance Professor Martha Curtis and Dierdre Towers, Artist Director of Dance Films Association and the New York Dance on Camera Festival, Dance on Camera II promises another exciting glimpse into the innovative genre of video dance. Says Curtis, “Created in five different countries, the shorts reveal an exciting range of innovative approaches to creating dance films.”

The screening will feature CAR MEN (The Netherlands, 2006), in which Sabina Kupferberg, Gioconda Barburo, Donald Krugel, and Karel Hrusko make a playful takeoff of the famous opera into a metaphor for time, speed, stillness, movement, youth and age, while saluting the slapstick silent film era. Czech born choreographer Jirí Kylián and director Boris Paval Conen made this black-and-white film in a coalmine in the Czech Republic. Dutch composer Han Otten arranged Bizet’s music and added extra music specially composed for the film. The key prop in the film is a ‘scrap car’ reminiscent of the futurist Czech Tatra of the 1930s. CAR MEN was nominated for the New York Dance on Camera Festival Jury Prize.

Excerpt from Car Men

In OF THE HEART (USA, 2008), directed by Douglas Rosenberg/Allan Kaeja, a dance camera trio set in a windblown field records heartfelt performances by David Dorfman and Lisa Race. Of the Heart was Nominated for the New York Dance on Camera Festival Jury Prize.

Isabel Rocamora’s HORIZON OF EXILE (United Kingdom/Spain, 2007) depicts a journey of two women across timeless desert landscapes, punctuated by voice testimonies of Iraqi exiles. Set to a soundtrack by Jivan Gasparyan with the hypnotic voice of Surma Hamid, an Iraqi exile now living in London, the bodies betray a serene violence, traveling as though released from consciousness or gravity, falling and recuperating, haunted by an irrepressible past. Horizon of Exile received the IMZ Dance Screen Award 2007; the 'Best Screen Choreography” award in The Hague, and the Choreography Media Honors Award 2008 from Dance Camera West, L.A.

Horizon of Exile

And finally, in DANCE LIKE YOUR OLD MAN (Australia, 2007), six women imitate their dads’ dancing. Directed by Gideon Obarzanek & Edwina Throsby, this film was the Winner of Cinedans 2008.

Dance Like Your Old Man

This program was made possible through Dance Films Association's touring program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the members of DFA, and the Susan Braun Trust.

Dance on Camera II is the eighth event of the VCU Dance 2008-2009 Season, a thrilling year of concerts, film screenings, master classes and more. The VCU Dance 2008-2009 Season is made possible in part by funding graciously provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New England Foundation for the Arts, and VCUarts.

Tickets to Dance on Camera II are $5 and are available at the door.

VCU Dance offers Open Community Classes in Yoga

Mondays & Wednesdays
8:00-8:50 am
Six-Week Session: $120
March 16 – April 22, 2009
Pre-Registration Required: Call 804-828-1711.

With this breath-synchronized movement, the teacher will instruct you to move from one pose to the next on an inhale or an exhale. The poses flow smoothly and become like a dance. This practice stretches and strengthens the body from top to bottom. Acceptable for all levels of practitioners.

Taught by Arlene Bjork. Arlene has practiced and taught ashtanga vinyasa yoga since 1997. She was inspired to begin her avid practice after she realized during her first yoga class that her back pain from scoliosis had completely disappeared. After spending time in New York and Denver studying various traditions which she incorporates into the Vinyasa practice, Arlene settled in Richmond, Va with her family. She holds a BA in Creative Writing, and MBA in General Business, and has her Yoga Alliance Registration at the E500 hour level. She frequently studies at the Jivamukti Yoga School in NYC where she is lead by the guidance of Sharon Gannon, David Life, Ruth Lauer-Manenti, and other Jivamukti teachers. Arlene’s method builds strength, creates heat, cultivates the breath and calms the mind. All levels of practitioners, from the beginner to the advanced, can find pleasure and challenge under Arlene’s creative guidance. Arlene is the Director of the Grace Yoga Centers, as well as Grace Yoga Training Systems headquartered in Richmond.

NO DANCE EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Classes take place at the VCU Dance Center, 12 North Brunswick Street, Richmond.
Call or stop by the VCU Dance Office at 1315 Floyd Avenue to pre-register for the class.
There are no refunds, and classes are non-transferable.
VCU Dance Office: 1315 Floyd Avenue. Hours 8:30 am - 4:30 pm M-F.
Call 804-828-1711 or email Laura Stepp at steppll@vcu.edu for more information.