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Press Release: Ann Arbor Dance Works 31st Annual Spring Season
University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Dance. Ann Arbor Dance Works 31st Annual Spring Season. N.p., n.d. Web.
Ann Arbor Dance Works is proud to announce their 31st Annual Spring Season, featuring exciting new contemporary dance works by international guest artist Alessio Silvestrin, NYC dance artists Sarah Konner and Austin Selden, and University of Michigan Dance faculty choreographers Missy Beck, Bill DeYoung, and Sean Hoskins. Performers include faculty, guest artists, alumni, and UM Dance and Music students. Since its inception, Ann Arbor Dance Works has produced choreography to critical and popular acclaim in New York City, throughout the Midwest, and internationally.
The performances will be held on Thursday, June 9 and Friday, June 10, at 8:00 PM in the Betty Pease Studio Theater at the University of Michigan Central Campus Dance Building, 1310 N. University Ct. Ann Arbor. The Dance Building is attached to Central Campus Recreation Building.
- Tickets are $10 for the general public, and $7 for students/seniors. Tickets can be purchased online at mutotix.com or by visiting the Michigan Union Ticket Office (MUTO), located on the ground floor of the Michigan Union, 530 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, (734) 763-8587. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the door on the day of the performance, beginning at 7:00PM.
- Directions and parking: dance.umich.edu/departments/dance/contact.htm.
- For further information: visit annarbordanceworks.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES:
Highlighting this year’s performances are two works by guest artists. Alessio Silvestrin is a dynamic dance teacher, choreographer, pianist, composer, and former dancer with ground-breaking choreographers William Forsythe and Maurice Béjart. Hailing from Italy, and based in Tokyo for the past twelve years, Silvestrin was in residence at UM for seven weeks, teaching ballet and Forsythe Improvisational Technologies. During the last two weeks of his residency, he choreographed an elegant trio for three women entitled Five Miniatures. The dance features a live pianist performing a piano composition of the same title by Silvestrin. Intricate and interwoven movements and spatial variations parallel the intertwining melodies of the five piano studies. alessiosilvestrin.com/
Based in New York City, UM Dance alumni Sarah Konner and Austin Selden will present Étude a physical investigation of compositional elements in duet. With a carefully constructed acceleration of speed and intensity, Sarah and Austin have collaborated to offer a view of a relationship between moving bodies, as themselves. The joy and rigor of rolling down a mountain together, connected or distanced, but ending at the same time, on the same plateaued plain. The piece, among other things, is about pacing and deep timeless connection.
sarahandaustindance.com/
Missy Beck premieres a new quartet that emulates the constantly shifting landscape of a river at dusk, subjective and murky. Individual details blur into larger scenes of motion as dancers present movements and rhythms both timeless and unending. The audience is left with a lingering ebb and flow.
Bill DeYoung premieres a solo created for dancer Abby Worth, drawing inspiration from Igor Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo. The music was composed in 1918 and will be performed live by UM Masters candidate Garret Ray Jones.
A solo created and performed by Sean Hoskins, has him embodying the immediate present and its direct relationship to what has occurred mere seconds before. Through the use of live capture technology, Hoskins dances with multiple projected images of himself. seanhoskins.com
The concerts have been generously funded by the University of Michigan Department of Dance and the Gay Delanghe Endowment.
About Ann Arbor Dance Works:
Formed in 1985, Ann Arbor Dance Works is the resident professional dance company of the University of Michigan Department of Dance. The company shares a wide-ranging repertory with audiences in an annual spring season and in community performances. In addition to producing works by resident faculty choreographers, the company hosts guest artists from the US and abroad. Designers, poets, videographers, visual artists, musicians and composers collaborate with company members, contributing to the creation of innovative and multi-layered works of resonance, depth, and beauty. Performers include faculty, guest artists, alumni, and current Dance students. Since its inception, Ann Arbor Dance Works has produced choreography to critical and popular acclaim in New York City, throughout the Midwest, and internationally. The company has also presented several large-scale site-specific dances with a variety of Ann Arbor community partners. Artistic Director for the company is Jessica Fogel.
"Audience members could feel an intimate connection with all the performers. [The program's works] were exhilarating.... evocative.... glowing.... radiantly danced" Kate O’Neill, Dance Magazine
“wonderful dancing,…clever choreography, smart and witty, artful and artless, …evocative…beautiful” Susan Nisbett, annarbor.com