Press Release

For Immediate Release

 

Collaborate, Collide, Create, Connect:

Performing Dance Company presents its Spring Concert

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What:The University of Utah Performing Dance Company’s Spring Concert

Where: Hayes Christensen Theatre, Marriott Center for Dance

When: February 7, 8, 9 and 14,15,16, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Tickets: $10 general, $7 students/seniors/ U of U faculty and staff

581-7100; www.kingtix.org Buy tickets

Contact: Carly Allred: carly.allred@utah.edu or 801/587-9804  

 

See animation, musicians, and dancers collide and connect in Performing Dance Company’s Spring Concert presented by the University of Utah Department of Modern Dance.  The concert runs February 7, 8, 9 and 14, 15, 16 featuring works by American master choreographer Murray Louis, and faculty members Satu Hummasti in collaboration with Lien Fan Shen, Pamela Geber, Stephen Koester and Carly Allred.

 

Set to the music of Franz Schubert’s Trout Quintet, and performed live by alumni from The University of Utah’s School of Music, the reconstruction of Murray Louis’ Schubert creates bubbling motion with a delightful quirky zeal. The choreography showcases the technical prowess of the PDC performers, Louis’ influential and highly stylized technique, and the unconventional lyricism of Schubert. The licensing and performance of Schubert has been granted through the exclusive rights of Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance, Inc. International, Inc. and is made possible through the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation.

 

Satu Hummasti collaborates with Lien Fan Shen from The University of Utah’s film department to create Thaw. Combining animation with literal and metaphorical images, this piece uncovers the vulnerability and openness that ensues as two couples attempt to connect.

 

Sexy and awkward, chiseled and slightly askew, five women dressed in techno-slick hoop dresses travel down a rabbit hole of sorts into a fragmented reality in Pamela Geber's new work titled Wonderland.  Set to a sound score with whiffs of toy pianos played against the driving rhythms of Radiohead, a backwards version of Aphex Twin and the heavy drones of Julian Fane, performers fall off and climb upon a massive, slightly tilted chair that extends beyond their view.

 

Stephen Koester's new work, And the River Ran Dry, starts from a meditative exploration of hands as the most expressive and sensitive part of the human body with a language all their own.  From the hands, the energy extends up into the arms and throughout the whole body resulting in a movement vocabulary that is as liquid as water.  Water plays an important imagistic part in the creation of this work as the choreographer references a river and its flowing waters to events that gently and continually evolve forward, inevitable and without effort.  The result is a meditative, quiet and ease.  Within this stillness and simplicity, are subtle shades of emotionality and human connection.

 

Carly Allred’s Undone explores a surreal habitat that has deteriorated into a feral world.  Dancers experience the thin line separating the hunter and the hunted as they struggle between roles of power and submission.  The women are unusual creatures that are willing to negotiate power until the threat of being backed into a corner presents itself. 

 

Performances begin at 7:30 pm February 7-9 and 14-16 at the Hayes Christensen Theatre in the Marriott Center for Dance on the University of Utah Campus. Tickets are $10 for general public, or $7 for students, seniors, and U of U faculty/staff, and are available at the door one hour prior to the performance. Tickets can also be purchased through Kingsbury Hall ticket office, www.kingtix.org or by calling 581-7100.

 

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The Marriott Center for Dance is located at 330 S 1500 E on the University of Utah campus (driving directions). The Hayes Christensen Theatre and the Experimental (Studio 240) Theater are both housed in the Center for Dance. Due to construction, parking is limited. Guests are advised to take TRAX or carpool and use the visitor parking lot east of the Marriott Center for Dance, or lots accessed from So. Campus Drive, north or east of Rice-Eccles Stadium.  Visit this link for more parking details.

Please check our performance calendar frequently as events are added throughout the year.  You may also want to sign up for e-mail announcements of our upcoming events.  Click here and ask to be added to our Events List.  Don't miss out.

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