Mavericks & Pioneers

June 12-14, 2009

Location: UWM Mainstage Theatre, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Performances: Friday, June 12 at 7:30 pm (an informal reception follows this performance)
Saturday, June 13 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, June 14 at 2 pm
Tickets: To order tickets, call (414) 229-4308.
$15 /general admission
$9/students, seniors and UWM alumni, faculty and staff
$30/ Family Fiver (good for up to 2 adults and 3 children)

The UWM Peck School of the Arts Department of Dance launches its summer season with Summerdances: Mavericks & Pioneers. In Summerdances we step backward to revisit the work of a pioneer of multimedia, American master choreographer Alwin Nikolais (1910-93), and leap forward to survey the contributions of dance faculty mavericks Simone Ferro, Dani Kuepper and Luc Vanier. Multimedia is a feature of the works created by the faculty choreographers: they embrace film, 3-D animation, interaction, visual art and music in dances that explore the hermetic world of ballet, the collision of Brazilian folk traditions and modern dance, and the random events that shape our lives.

American Masterpieces: Alwin Nikolais
The concert marks the culmination of the year-long reconstruction of two classic Nikolais works: “Tensile Involvement” (1953) and “Water Studies” (1964). A composer and visual artist as well as a choreographer, Nikolais embraced multimedia as part of a radical approach to dance that shifted focus away from the individual dancer and self-expression toward the overall effect of the production. By depersonalizing dancers, Nikolais liberated them from their own forms; by constricting their movement with costumes, props or sets, he focused their attention on the physical task of overcoming obstacles, transforming them into investigators of the properties of physical space and movement.

In “Tensile Involvement,” ten dancers stretch long strips of cloth across the stage, creating geometric structures as well as snares for the occasional individual dancer who becomes enmeshed in these cat’s cradles.

See the Joffrey Ballet performing “Tensile Involvement” at the start of Robert Altman’s 2003 film, The Company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2u5h8SUmsg

In “Water Studies,” each dancer moves within their own slightly stretchy cloth band. The human form, obscured by the bands, is further redefined by the projections (from slides hand painted by Nikolais) that are projected on the performers.

“We had a particular interest in Nikolais as a pioneer of multimedia and an interdisciplinary artist who created works of total theatre that integrated sound, movement, costume, props, sets and projections,” observes Ed Burgess, chair of the Dance Department. “The project coincided with a growing interest in performance and technology across the Peck School, and we began planning it around the time we opened the Kenilworth building, a space designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration with an emphasis on technology and multimedia. With the addition of Iain Court as our technical director, with his wealth of experience with multimedia performance, we were in a position to undertake this ambitious project.”

The reconstruction of “Tensile Involvement” and “Water Studies” was supervised by Alberto del Saz, artistic director of the Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance Company and co-director of the Nikolais/Louis Foundation, and was made possible by American Masterpieces: Dance, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, which is administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with Dance/USA. Mr. del Saz, who danced with Nikolais Dance Theatre and now devotes his time to keeping the artist’s repertory and pedagogy alive, visited Milwaukee three times over the course of the year. He arrived in the fall to teach master classes and audition students; returned in January to set the two pieces; and returns prior to Summerdances to prepare the works for performance.

These year-long residencies have become a feature of the department’s curriculum. Past residencies have focused on the work of Susan Marshall, Ronald K. Brown and Laura Dean; next year the department will welcome Garth Fagan and recreate one of his signature works as part of a year-long focus on the Art of Africa and the African Diaspora. In addition to situating each choreographer’s work in an interdisciplinary context, the residency projects provide exposure to related dance and production history and intensive work with several guet artists. This year, the casts of the Nikolais pieces also participated in two workshops: they studied image partnering with alumni Edwin Olvera and Roberto Olvera, and explored physical theatre techniques associated with Cirque du Soleil with director Ed Morgan.

Tensile Involvement video preview

Water Studies video preview

Luc Vanier: “Fake it ‘til you Make it”
In “Fake it ‘til you Make it,” Vanier brings together eight dancers and a team of collaborators to examine the world of ballet ethics, relationships and its pointe technique. This curious and delicate world is encapsulated in live 3D animation designed by Evan Maruszewski with interactions by Barry Doerfer, costumes by Louella Powell inspired by the work of visual artist Kristin Haas, and shoes by Kurt Hartwig; the music is by League of Crafty Guitarists. An expanded version of the work, with music by faculty member Christopher Burns, will be premiered by the Milwaukee Ballet in February 2010. Vanier’s work is supported by a Wisconsin Arts Board Artist Fellowship in choreography.

Fake it 'till you Make it video video preview

Simone Ferro: “Urrou, Urrou”
“Urrou, Urrou” is the result of Ferro’s field research in Brazil in 2008. Created in collaboration with the performers, the piece explores the tension between the spontaneity of folk traditions and the esthetics and formality of modern dance. “Urrou” means “to scream” in Portuguese, and in this context it refers to the scream of an ox (boi), the central figure of the Brazilian folguedo or festival known as Bumba-meu-boi. The title not only refers to the central dramatic moment of the celebration, but is also an homage to the legendary Bartolomeu dos Santos, nicknamed “O Coxinho,” one of the greatest Bumba-meu-boi singers in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhão. His song “Urrou, Urrou” is considered an anthem in Maranhão. The dance revisits the Brazilian popular celebration, allowing the folk tradition to coexist with the abstraction of modern dance movement. Multimedia projections juxtapose the Maranhão festival with the movement of the UWM dancers. The piece uses original music from two well-known festival groups in Maranhão, Pindoba and Maracanã. Ferro met and interviewed the leaders of each group last year in São Luis, Maranhão.

Ferro recently received a prestigious UWM Research Growth Initiative award to continue her research into Bumba-meu-boi and the development of a dance form that integrates folk tradition and modern dance. In October, a section of “Urrou, Urrou” will be restaged as part of Simone Ferro and Friends, aconcert at the Danceworks Studio Theatre. In 2010, Ferro will premiere new works on Winterdances and Summerdances related to the project and to the school’s Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora theme.

Urrou, Urrou video preview

Dani Kuepper: “A Random Event”
Dani Kuepper created “A Random Event”by collecting and bringing to life the dancers’ accounts of bizarre moments in their lives. In many cases, these unexpected moments were spurred by crossing paths with strangers or running into someone familiar in a strange place. Kuepper and her cast of ten took these tales and proceeded to create an unexpected, bizarre event for others to happen upon, then caught the event on film. The film and a live “Random Event” will be part of Summerdances.