Monthly Archives: January 2013

Jane Comfort and Company 2/14-16/2013

The Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College and the William J. Cooper Foundation will present JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 8PM in the Swarthmore College Lang Performing Arts Center Pearson Hall Theatre. Here at Swarthmore her company presents two works:  Beauty and Underground River.  Beauty is a provocative dance theater piece that explores the American notion of female beauty through the lens of Barbie. The performance includes a Barbie beauty contest and an intimate encounter between Barbie and Ken. Underground River, described as a “risk-taking and profound theatrical tour de force,” is an exploration of the rich fantasy life of a girl who appears to be unconscious. Singing a cappella songs by Toshi Reagon and interacting with the magical visual creations of master puppeteer Basil Twist, the dancers dwell in a world of magic realism and eccentric beauty unseen by those who wish to make her “well.”

For the last 25 years, JANE COMFORT has created critically acclaimed, socially conscious dance theater. She has been on the front lines of dissent against the loss of gains for social justice since the Reagan revolution. JANE COMFORT is a choreographer, writer, and director based in New York City. She began creating her own interdisciplinary work in 1978, and has since created more than 45 original dance theatre works for Jane Comfort and Company. She has been produced throughout the United States, and in Europe and Latin America, and has been cited as “one of the most original choreographers on the downtown scene” by The Village Voice. Noted for her use of language, Comfort has been described as “far ahead of the curve” in experimenting with the intersection of text and movement.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY creates dance theater works that push the intersection of movement and language to a new form of theater. Called by the New York Times “a postmodernist pioneer in the use of verbal material in dance,” artistic director Jane Comfort addresses contemporary social and cultural issues with compassion and wit. The company is an extraordinary group of dancers, actors and singers whose multiple talents allow Jane Comfort to create deeply layered works utilizing a wide range of theatrical elements, from pure dance to chanted texts, a capella singing, film, lip-syncing, cross dressing, acted scenes and puppetry. The company creates theater in which transformation occurs through many voices.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY will also host a Master Class in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002) on Thursday, February 14th from 4:30 – 6:00PM and a Workshop on Saturday, February 16th from 1:00 – 4:00 PM in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002). These events are free and open to interested students, but please contact Professor Kim Arrow (karrow1@swarthmore.edu) at x8670 or email our administrative office at dance@swarthmore.edu.

Faculty Dance Concert 2/9/2013 at 8PM

Join the Swarthmore College dance program faculty for an evening of choreographic works on Saturday, February 9th at 8PM in the LPAC Pearson-Hall Theatre.  Selections include modern, flamenco, African, and much more with works for the dance faculty including Kemal Nance, Jumatatu Poe, Dolores Gmitter, Kim Arrow, Jon Sherman and visiting Cornell professor Kumudini Lakhia.

Goings on about town…

“9 Evenings: Collaborating on Human-Machine Intimacies”
by Ashley Ferro-Murray 
2pm panel 
Friday, January 18
Terrace Room of Cohen Hall, Perelman Quad at the University of Pennsylvania. 
Part of the larger “Intimate Collaborations” collaborations conference that accompanies the Phil Museum’s exhibition “Dancing Around the Bride: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Marcel Duchamp.”

Ashley Ferro-Murray is a doctoral candidate in performance studies with a designated emphasis in new media at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation looks at the importance of movement in the construction of digital subjectivities and is currently titledTactical Movement: Media-based choreography and Its Effect on Digital Culture. Ferro-Murray’s writing addresses dance history, dance studies, performance studies, new media studies, visual art, and art history. As a choreographer, Ferro-Murray reuses ordinary technologies toward re-conceiving issues of access and interaction in performance. Ferro-Murray has published book reviews with The Drama Review and Dance Research Journal. She has also been featured as a contributor on -empyre- new media list serve and In Media Res blog. Her choreography has been produced by Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, The Milk Bar in Oakland, CA, and ZERO1 Biennial.