Winterdances

(photo credit: Troye Fox)

Winterdances: Fate/Love & Loss*

UWM Dance continues its 2011-12 Fate & Destiny season with six inspiring dances, two of which represent a generation of dancer/choreographer. “The Gift/No God Logic” is one of Arnie Zane’s last dances. This 1987 work resonates in its simplicity and purity, reflecting Zane’s sensitivity to the visual image created by movement. Honoring Ed Burgess’ legacy, dance majors will perform a revival of “Gotta Go,” a work originally created/performed with Brian Jeffery in 1991, plus a new work by Dani Kuepper inspired by the cadences and patterns of Burgess’ voice and life. With additional choreography by Luc Vanier and Darci Brown Wutz, Winterdances might cause you to question the risks taken in everyday life and how much fate can dictate the outcomes...(see below for more details about the program)

Pre-Show Talks 6:45pm Thurs-Sat at Theatre Atrium (2nd floor)

- Friday, Feb 3rd talk with former Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company members Heidi Latsky and Janet Lilly. A reception will follow the show.
- A reception will follow the show on Friday, Feb 3.

Tickets: $22 general/$15 seniors, UWM faculty, staff & alumni/$12 students
Box office 414-229-4308

Join us for a remembrance of Ed Burgess

Sunday, Feb 5th at Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts
10am-1:30pm. Ceremony from 11am-Noon.

Perpetuate Ed’s Passion

Join us at this celebration of Ed’s life and plan to stay for the UWM Department of Dance Winterdances: Fate/Love & Loss performance at 2pm in the Mainstage Theatre.

Please consider making a gift in support of The Ed Burgess Legacy Scholarship Fund.

Send to:
UWM Foundation/Ed Burgess Legacy Scholarship Fund
1440 East North Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202

Or Online at uwm.edu/giving
• Click on Give Online, then Make a Gift
• Click on Gift Designation and select “Arts”
• Click on Additional Instruction and type in “Ed Burgess Legacy Scholarship Fund”

PROGRAM FOR WINTERDANCES: FATE/LOVE & LOSS

Artistic Director Associate Professor Simone Ferro
Technical Director Iain Court

"Gotta Go" (2002)

Choreography: Ed Burgess, Brian Jeffery (1991)
Reconstruction & Direction: Joe Fransee
Music is by Mickey Hart.

"Gotta Go" is a piece originally created and performed by the late Ed Burgess and guest artist Brian Jeffrey in 1991, and once revived in 2002. Joe Frensee (who performed in the 2002 revival) is putting "Gotta Go" back together for two of the Dance Program's male students. At its premiere in 1991, Tom Strini described "Gotta Go" as "a frenetic sketch about guys going nowhere in a big hurry...imagine a pair of Grouchos on speed doing ‘Waiting for Godot.’ It's the funniest dance I have ever seen." "It's still funny," mentioned Burgess (at the press release in 2002), who sometimes finds life "much too serious." "It has been very amusing working on it again, passing something fun on to two other guys." Said Burgess at that occasion.

"The Gift/No God Logic" (originally choreographed for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1987)

Choreography: Arnie Zane
Reconstruction: Heidi Latsky
Rehearsal Director: Gerald Casel

The Gift/No God Logic was created in 1987, near the end of Zane’s short life, and during a period when Zane was concentrating on his own choreography rather than collaborating with his partner Bill T. Jones. “For Arnie this piece came as a burst ‘away’ from the stricture of our shared choreographic pressure and ‘toward’ a deeper understanding of his own agenda as dance maker/artist.” Jones sees the piece as a gift on several levels, a “special delivery package for the world. For the man losing strength daily there was no God-derived logic” (quoted in Body against Body; the dance other collaborations of Bill T. Jones & Arnie Zane). It is the work of a person stripping dance down to the essentials in the face of great loss: stillness, periods of silence, “simple patterns, simple poses and gestures, and unusual partnering” (Laura Molzahn in the Chicago Reader); for Jones it breathes “the way humans breathe.” Deborah Jowitt (The Village Voice, 1988) described it as “the strongest of Zane’s last works” and, like many critics, noted the power of this highly formal quartet and the austere, autonomous world Zane created with his community of dancers. The soaring, dramatic arias from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, performed by Montserrat Caballe, provide a poignant contrast to the dancers’ “grave, pristine movements,” their “control and steadfastness.” Jennifer Dunning (New York Times, 1988) calls it “a dance of memorable simplicity and un-ironic emotion.”

"All That" and "But Then..."

"Darci Brown Wutz explores the consequences of the choices we make when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable."

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ???"

Choreographer, Dani Kuepper, will collaborate with composer, Seth Warren-Crow and UWM dance students to create WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR ??? Recordings of Ed Burgess' unmistakable speech patterns - words that spill with painstaking accuracy and effortfully timed punctuation - will be woven into a sound score created by Warren-Crow. Inspired by the cadences and patterns of Burgess' voice and life, the dance will explore the use of time - consistently metered, indulgently expansive and suddenly, halted.

“Bring it on Home”

Choreography: Luc Vanier
Music: “Black Dog” “Immigrant Song” “Heartbreaker” “Whole Lotta Love” “Moby Dick” and “Bring it on Home” by Led Zeppelin

“Bring it on Home” intends to explore Wendell Beaver’s quote and guides the dancers to integrate difficult technical concepts in performance. The work is my third attempt this year to explore the concept of ballet’s “épaulement” (Shouldering) as an advanced technical element in dancing. Ballet often tricks us to look at the legs while most of the work is actually happening as a coordination of the limbs against the head, neck and back. “Bring it on Home” teaches and tests this principle to various limits. A difficult technical element to “digest,” most everything else is secondary. I have encouraged the dancers to focus on épaulement above everything else, whether it be dancing “together,” “in line” or achieving particular steps “perfectly.” Much of the dancers’ timing is based on their own individual rhythms and aims to honor their understanding of the technique at this particular moment.

“Dance’s most neurotic moments, historically and personally, have come when undigested technique dictates content.” Wendell Beaver