7:30pm Thurs-Sat; 2pm Sun Mainstage Theatre arts.uwm.edu/winterdances
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Jan 23-26
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PROGR A M
La Hora de Salir (reconstruction/deconstruction) Choreography: Maria Gillespie Proximity Determines Choreography: Christina Briggs Winslow Going to Polly’s Choreography: Carrie Lande Intermission Lamb Choreography: Keely Garfield the chat room has no chairs Choreography: Debra Loewen Winterdances
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A R T I S T I C D I R E C TO R ’ S N O T E Welcome to Winterdances: Past Moving Forward! This year we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the birth of the Department of Dance. For the department’s first dance concert, the director wrote: “We hope these activities will make the Dance Department a great asset to the cultural life of the community.” Today UWM Dance, its graduates, and their dance companies are at the core of the artistic notoriety of the city. The first principle of the department was to provide “the finest training and coursework available,” a goal we have realized by creating a broad offering of courses designed to focus equally on technique, creative work and research. At its inception, Labanotation was integral to the original curriculum. This goal has now grown into a department-wide emphasis on somatic science: Laban Movement Analysis, Alexander Technique, Body Sense, Pilates and Iyengar Yoga. In 1964, there was a focus on promoting the many forms of dance and diversity of cultures, and now we have the only BFA track in Africa and the Diaspora Dance in the country. The founders of the Dance Department decided to create a university dance company to give students opportunities for professional experience and now we have no less than 5 modern dance companies in Milwaukee that are founded and run by UWM alumni and faculty. Tonight you will see works by five UWM artists. Winterdances includes dances by Keely Garfield (MFA 2009), an established New York choreographer; the newest member of our full-time faculty Maria Gillespie, who brings her company Oni Dance to Milwaukee from Los Angeles; Carrie Lande, an MFA candidate who will present her thesis concert on campus this July; and Debra Loewen (MFA 1982), director of Wild Space, Milwaukee’s leader in sitespecific dance. My choreography rounds out the program. I joined the faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor after earning my MFA in 2011. I am honored to be carrying on a tradition that began 50 years ago and am excited to see the UWM Department of Dance continue to evolve into its next half-century. Cheers to the next chapter! Christina Briggs Winslow
W I N T E R DA N C E S : PA S T M OV I N G F O R WA R D La Hora de Salir (reconstruction/deconstruction) Choreography: Maria Gillespie Music: Jordi Savall, Hespèrion XXI, James Brown, Chavela Vargas, Tindersticks Performers: Quinn Dixon, Chanteé Kelly, Kendra Kramas, Christopher MacGregor, Brooke Miller, Jorge Quintero (Oni Dance Intern) Choreographer Note: Originally choreographed in 2008, La Hora de Salir is an exploration of the mechanics of leaving. It reveals the powerful union and separation of two individuals. Rooted in tenderness, the dance is sparked by the magnetic pull that compels us to seek connection, even as we affirm our independence. Tonight’s work is a deconstruction of the original dance and signals the protean nature of the self - to endure departures and find strength in new connections. Proximity Determines Choreography: Christina Briggs Winslow Music: Tim Russell with Sean Behling on saxophone Costumes: Leslie Vaglica Dancers: Elise Jumes, Nicole Ross, Devin Settle, Maria Tordoff, Bonnie Watson *Special thanks to dancer Kao Zhong Xiong for her contribution to the creative process.
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Choreographer Note: The Art of War by Sun-tzu Earth is Height and depth, Distance and proximity, Ease and danger, Open and confined ground, Life and death This work originates from my desire to excavate and incorporate the stories of the performers. We embarked on a philosophical study of the nature of being and developed ways to translate this into performance. In Proximity Determines, the dancers are challenged to locate themselves in spatial relationships to each other, the audience, events in the dance and personal life experiences. By extension, the dancers find a level of engagement with others and a relationship to self that would lead to being present in the moment, not just simply doing or being. Going to Polly’s Choreography: Carrie Lande Performers: Brandi Coleman, Jennifer Glaws, Whitney Jacobs Music: “Hallelujah” performed by Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orchestra Choreographer Note: In the 1930’s, though illegal, brothels and bordellos were still part of the social underground scene in many big cities. Going to Polly’s is a lighthearted look at the women who occupy these brothels and their silly antics to “win” the attention and affection of the evening’s clientele. 15-Minute Intermission Lamb Choreography: Keely Garfield Rehearsal Director: Christal Wagner Music: Loscil, Sean Hayes Costumes: Keely Garfield Dancers: Quinn Dixon, Melissa Gross, Brooke Miller, Chlöe Nagle, Nadin Nowak, Christal Wagner *Special thanks to dancer Kymberly McDaniel for her contribution to the creative process. Choreographer Note: The dancing in Lamb is framed by the Zen saying, “Fall seven times, stand up eight” - When life knocks you down, you should get up and try again. By you in this instance, I mean me. The work is about the permeability of boundaries, continually adjusting to conditions as they present themselves, and the murmuration of starlings. Like birds, the dancers organize themselves in response to perceived pressure from others, shifts in energy and volume of activity, and emerging patterns. They are looking for the tipping point where one thing is instantly and completely changed into something else like a liquid turning into a gas. The ordinary act of getting up takes on epic stature as they teeter on the brink of equilibrium. Impossibly poised between heaven and earth, a delicate stability emerges out of dissolution. Their resilience is most apparent. the chat room has no chairs Choreographer: Debra Loewen Dancers: Halie Bahr, Melissa Gross, Marissa Jax, Amelia Morris, Chlöe Nagle, Caroline Seigworth, Kelsey Stolhand, Kristin Reidelberger (Wild Space Intern) Composer: Matthew Herbert Sound Editor: Tim Russell Winterdances
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Costume Design: Leslie Vaglica Choreographer Note: Anything can be the place where something can start. This work evolved from group improvisations and individual movement responses to questions about personal interests, combined with rhythmic dance phrases created by the dancers (based on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring). Conversation included cell phones and laptops and tablets, and our love/hate relationship with them. We shared links (please see arts.uwm.edu/Winterdances for some examples) and watched dance and gradually, the dance entered the room and material began to take shape and form. So much of internet language is human. We search, enter, share, follow, like, comment, control, shift, return, pause, receive, trash, view, quit, hit, freeze, crash, watch, copy and so on. With this underscore, dancers link and twist forward on convoluted pathways. One gets side-tracked, another is still against waves of motion, connections are made then lost, all caught in the spinning rainbow, together and alone at the same time. A special thank you to all of the dancers, it has been a delight to work with all of you.
BIOGR APHIES Christina Briggs Winslow (Choreographer) joins UWM for her third year as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Peck School of the Arts. She comes to Milwaukee after 15 years in New York City, where she was on the faculty of Hofstra University, Queens College and the Joffrey Jazz & Contemporary Summer Intensive. She has also taught Contemporary Technique, Ballet, and Repertory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the TseKh Summer Dance School in Moscow, Russia. In 1998, Christina co-founded Incidents Dance with Edward Winslow. Since then her work has toured nationally and performed in New York City at Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, Pace University, St. Mark’s Church and University Settlement. Christina has performed with and been influenced by Gerald Casel, Pat Cremins, Heidi Latsky, Susan Osberg and Li Chiao-Ping. She has been a Pilates Instructor since 1998 and is currently training in the Alexander Technique. Keely Garfield (Choreographer) has created work for ballet dancers (Dance Theater of Harlem), antique puppets (Czechoslovakian-American Marionette Theater), musical theatre (Gypsy 4
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Sundance, Carousel NJ Shakespeare Festival etc), children (DTW’s Family Matters, Lincoln Center’s Reel to Real etc), students (Barnard, Hunter, The New School, etc), and MTV. Keely Garfield Dance has been presented at many theaters and festivals nationally and internationally. Highlights include: Deep (The Joyce Theater), Disturbing The Peace (Zenon Dance Company, MN), Iron Lung (Groundworks Dancetheater, OH), Disturbulance (Dance Theater Workshop), Scent of Mental Love (A film for Radio Bremen/Canal Arte), Limerence and Bessienominated Twin Pines (Danspace Project) and Telling the Bees (Chocolate Factory). KGD has been presented by Celebrate Brooklyn!, Danceworks, Philadelphia Dance Projects, The Southern Theater, Danse Vernissage (Montreal), Spring Loaded (London), and Tanzmesse (Frankfurt). KGD will premiere new work at Danspace Project, NY, in 2014. Keely holds an MFA from UWM, is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher and an Urban Zen Integrative Therapist. Maria Gillespie (Choreographer), artistic director of Oni Dance, was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” Gillespie’s choreography has been presented at venues including The Ford Amphitheatre, The Getty Museum, the Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater, The A.W.A.R.D Show!, UCLA, CalArts, Scripps College, Pomona College, Cal State Long
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Beach, and Santa Monica College as well as in New York and San Francisco. She has performed and taught internationally in Mexico, Japan and China. A four-time Lester Horton Award winner, Gillespie received grants from The Durfee Foundation, The Irvine Foundation, and UWM’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies. She was an adjunct and visiting professor at UCLA, CalArts, Loyola Marymount, CalState University Long Beach and University of Iowa. Gillespie received an MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts & Cultures and a BFA from SUNY Purchase. She joined the faculty at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts as Assistant Professor in 2012. www.onidance.org A native of Springfield, IL, Sarah Hamilton (Production Manager, Lighting Designer) joins UWM Dance after nearly fifteen years in regional theatre design and production. She has worked with a diverse array of companies including the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Victory Gardens Theatre and Portland Center Stage. Locally, Sarah has served on the technical staff of First Stage Children’s Theatre, Skylight Music Theatre, Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre and Milwaukee Ballet. She holds an MFA in Theatre (Lighting Design) from Illinois State University and continues to design for a variety of independent architectural and events clients in addition to theatrical and dance productions. Carrie Lande (Homuth) (Choreographer) is a choreographer/dance educator/performer throughout the Twin Cities, Minnesota and her work has been seen both nationally and internationally. In 2011, she began her company Live Wire Dance, a modern and jazz dance company. As the Director of Dance for Shattuck-St. Mary’s college prep boarding school in Faribault, MN, Carrie has the opportunity to share her love of movement with today’s youth. Going to Polly’s is part of an evening-length work, which will be presented at UWM in summer 2014. This work explores the roles of women spanning the early 1900’s through the 1930’s, through storytelling, rhythm and movement. A special thank you to her
husband Matt for his constant love and support and to the dancers for their inspiration and commitment to the work. Debra Loewen (Choreographer), Senior Lecturer for UWM Dance, founded Wild Space Dance Company in 1986 following a career as an independent choreographer and solo performer. Loewen has created more than 120 works for the company, which have been performed to critical acclaim throughout Wisconsin and in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, Japan, and South Korea. Featured in Dance Magazine, her sitespecific work has brought renewed interest and recognition to Milwaukee landmarks, such as Historic Turner Ballroom and the Lynden Sculpture Garden. Loewen has earned fellowships from Milwaukee County, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011, she was selected by the Milwaukee Arts Board as an Artist of the Year. She holds a BFA in dance from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and an MFA in dance from UWMilwaukee. In addition to PSOA, she has taught for the University of Delaware, Alverno College and Lawrence University. Tim Russell (Composer) lives in a world of sound. His professional career as a musician found him playing drums in rock bands in the Chicago suburbs. Tim’s passion for sound deepened as he attended the University of Wisconsin, graduating with a BM in percussion performance. An astute recommendation immersed him in the world of Contemporary Movement via accompanying Dance classes and composing music at the University of Wisconsin, an environment that encouraged his experimental and collaborative spirit. Tim resides in Milwaukee, participating in the current sonic landscape. Recently called “the premier composer for modern dance in Milwaukee” by the Shepherd Express, his “compelling original music” (Madison Isthmus) has been used by choreographers such as Li Chiao-Ping, Kate Corby, Gerald Casel, Wild Space, Danceworks, and Kun Yang Lin bringing Tim and his music all across the country from New York City to San Francisco. Winterdances
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Leslie Vaglica (Costume Designer) graduated from UW-Eau Claire and earned a post-graduate degree from Mt Mary College. She spends her days as first hand at the Milwaukee Rep and takes great pride in designing for theatre and dance. She’s had the pleasure of designing for the Optimist, Pink Banana, and Milwaukee Co-op theaters. Dance costuming includes Art to Art, Phantasmagoria, UWM Musical Theatre and Wild Space. It is a particular joy to collaborate with dancers and is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the talented group from the UWM Dance Department. Christal Wagner (Rehearsal Director) has her BFA in Dance from University of WisconsinMilwaukee. Professionally she gained her start with
Milwaukee-based company Your Mother Dances (2006-2010), spending 4 seasons with the company dancing locally and at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. While with YMD, she performed in works by David Parker, Heinz Poll, and works by the Artistic Director, Elizabeth Johnson. She currently performs with Danceworks Performance Company. While with DPC, she has performed work by Sean Curran, Emma Draves, Amii Legendre, Janet Lilly, and Simone Ferro in addition to works by artistic director Dani Kuepper. Her featured work includes solo performance in DPC’s Maria de Buenos Aires (2011), solo performance in MFA Graduates Amii LeGendre and Carey Foster’s Museum of Narrow Places (2011) and a featured performance in Present Music’s Around 30 concert (2012). Currently, she choreographs for Danceworks Performance Company, Cadance Collective and Community Theatre Works.
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PECK SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
Winterdances TICKET STUB IS WORTH
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One per check. Food only. Valid until February 8th, 2014 Not combined with any other offer.
W I N T E R DA N C E S P R O D U C T I O N T E A M Christina Briggs Winslow................................................................................................. Artistic Director Sarah Hamilton.....................................................................Production Manager/Lighting Designer Don Nichols............................................................................................Music Director/Audio Engineer Danielle Sanders............................................................................. Stage Manager/Master Electrician Alex Grzybowski............................................................................................... Assistant Stage Manager Mischa Premeau, Terry Valdovinos......................................................................................... Deck Chief Alex Grzybowski, Lauren Pekel, Mischa Premeau................................. Electrics/Carpentry Crew Carly Broutman, Miranda Heavener, Elise Jumes................................................... Dance 309 Crew Colby Breyfogle, Clare Richey-Kaplan..........................................................................Wardrobe Crew Korporate Media..................................................................................................................... Videographer Jessica Kaminski......................................................................................................................Photographer D E PA R TM E N T O F DA N C E FAC U LT Y A N D S TA F F Simone Ferro........................................................................................................................ Chair, Professor Ferne Caulker-Bronson, Marcia Ruth Parsons....................................................................... Professor Darci Brown Wutz, Luc Vanier..................................................................................Associate Professor Maria Gillespie.............................................................................................................. Assistant Professor Christina Briggs Winslow.......................................................................... Visiting Assistant Professor Gloria Gustafson, Mary D. Hibbard........................................................ Associate Professor Emeriti Alex Hansen, Elizabeth Johnson, Dani Kuepper, Debra Loewen, Krislyn World......................................................................................... Senior Lecturer Kayla Premeau............................................................................................................... Program Manager Sarah Hamilton...........................................................................................................Production Manager Don Nichols...........................................................................................................Music Director, Lecturer P E C K S C H O O L O F T H E A R T S A D M I N I S T R AT I O N Scott Emmons.......................................................................................................................................... Dean Kimberly Cosier.....................................................................................................................Associate Dean James Burmeister..................................................................................................................Assistant Dean Mary McCoy.............................................................................................................. Assistant to the Dean Amanda Obermeyer...............................................................................Interim Administrative Officer Ellen Friebert Schupper.............................................Marketing & Community Relations Director Nicole Schanen.......................................................................................................... Marketing Specialist Diane Grace........................................................................................................... Development Director Christine Barclay......................................................................................................... Box Office Manager Randall Trumbull-Holper, Lisa Dickson............................. Facilities Manager, Facilities Assistant Mike Van Toll........................................................................................................... Senior House Manager SPECIAL THANKS All of the choreographers, especially Keely Garfield for accepting the choreographic residency over the summer and Debra Loewen for going above and beyond her Senior Lecturer duties; Christal Wagner; Sara Krajewski and Bruce Knackert of Inova for the upcoming Wild Space collaboration; PSOA Marketing Office; Tim Russell; Sarah Hamilton and Don Nichols; Mark Petersen; Christine Barclay; Randall Trumbull-Holper; and UWM Physical Plant. Winterdances
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