Please Join us for A WINDOW ON THE WORK: LISA KRAUS AND CYNTHIA LEE 02 on April 5

The Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College presents A Window on the Work: Lisa Kraus and Cynthia Lee ’02 on Sunday, April 5 at 4 pm in Troy Dance Lab, Lang Performing Arts Center (LPAC). During this informal showing, Kraus and Lee will present works developed while taking part in the Swarthmore Project Residency in Dance this past summer, and will speak about their work and answer questions from the audience.

Lisa Kraus will present excerpts from Red Thread, an intergenerational work inspired by a model of women artists’ sustainability – quilting circles – created in collaboration with two long-time colleagues: Eva Karczag and Guggenheim Fellow Vicky Shick. The three women met while company members in The Trisha Brown Dance Company in the 1970s. They have each gone on to have successful careers in the contemporary dance field, and now in their fifties, come together again, full circle, to dance and reflect on their lives in movement.

Cynthia Lee ’02 returns to Swarthmore to show two works-in-progress. Kat-tarang is a contemporary kathak piece created in collaboration with tabla player Lenny Seidman that brings new cross-rhythmic possibilities to Hindustani (North Indian classical) music.

Lee will begin the afternoon with darshan, an outdoor ritual dance installation drawing connections between butoh and the fluid, reciprocal gaze of Indian aesthetic theory. Performers Lee, Liza Clark ’03 and Rebecca Patek will each dance for an audience passing by in a natural wooded setting.

Lisa Kraus is a Philadelphia-based dance artist whose career has included performing in the Trisha Brown Dance Company; choreographing and performing extensively with her own company and as an independent artist; teaching at universities, arts centers and the Paris Opera Ballet; and writing reviews, features and essays on dance for internet and print publication. Critic Sally Sommer wrote in Dance Magazine: “her voluptuousness reminds us that dancing can be a luxurious experience.”

Based in Los Angeles, Cynthia Lee holds an MFA in choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures and a BA in English Literature from Swarthmore College. She has studied extensively with masters of contemporary avant-garde dance Simone Forti and Eiko & Koma, and has been a practitioner of contact improvisation for the past ten years. Her style of Kathak reflects studies with renowned gurus Bandana Sen and Kumudini Lakhia in India and Anjani Ambegaokar in Los Angeles. Lee was awarded a year-long Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study religious dance in Thailand (Thai classical dance), Brazil (Candomble), and India (Kathak) from 2002-3.

The performance is free and open to the public without advance reservations. For further information, contact Liza Clark at lclark1@swarthmore.edu or call 610-328-8260.

Join us for the Faculty Dance Concert, Saturday, February 14th!

Please join us as the Department of Music and Dance presents the Faculty Dance Concert on Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 8 pm in Pearson-Hall Theatre, Lang Performing Arts Center. This year’s concert features new work by faculty Pallabi Chakravorty, Dolores Luis Gmitter, Isaburoh Hanayagi, Sally Hess, Lisa Kraus, C. Kemal Nance, R. Jeannine Osayande, Jumatatu Poe, and Stephen Welsh. In keeping with the Dance Department’s mission to educate about the global diversity of dance styles, and the relationships between dance, embodiment and social change, a wide variety of dance styles are represented: Kathak, a North Indian classical form of dance; traditional Japanese dance; modern and traditional African dance; flamenco; abstract and theatrical contemporary dance; and even yoga asana.

The performance is free and open to the public without advance reservations.? For more information contact Liza Clark at lclark1@swarthmore.edu or call (610) 328-8260.

Prof. Pallabi Chakravorty to give lecture at Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies

Swarthmore College dance professor Dr. Pallabi Chakravorty has been invited by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University to present a lecture entitled, “Culture Turns: Kathak, Nation, and Gender in Contemporary India.” The lecture will be on Monday, February 23, 2009 at 4:30 pm in Rm 216 Aaron Burr Hall, and is sponsored by the Program in South Asian Studies. For more information click here.

The Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company in the Legacy Project on Fri, Jan 30

The William J. Cooper Foundation presents the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company in The Legacy Project on Friday, January 30, 2009 at 8 pm in the Pearson-Hall Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center, Swarthmore College. “With inventive choreography, original music compositions, and evocative metaphors, the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, offers [the] audience the dance equivalent of a cherished book of family photographs” (The New York Times). Based in Union, New Jersey, Carolyn Dorfman and the CDDC have spent the past 26 years redefining the scope of dance as a method of storytelling and community building. In particular, CDDC’s Legacy Project inspires and rouses its audience as it explores themes of family, struggle, and survival in light of the Jewish diaspora.

Described by critics as “ingenious” (The Star-Ledger) and ??emotionally resonant?? (The New York Times), the dances in the Legacy Project bring together Dorfman’s family stories, Jewish history, and a universal struggle for identity. Through this combination, Dorfman inspires in her audience feelings of familiarity and unity, creating dances that serve as metaphors for the greater truths of the human experience. “In her works, visual images become still photographs that capture and freeze certain universal truths…both reflect[ing] and engender[ing] a profound humanity. Because her dances are about people and life experience, often moving from the autobiographical to the universal, they hold immediate appeal” (The New York Times).

The Company’s Legacy Project spans the arrival of Jews in America from Brazil in 1654 (“Odisea”) through to the Holocaust (“Cat’s Cradle,” “The Klezmer Sketch”) and finally to American assimilation and contemporary struggles (“The American Dream”). Additionally, “Echad” explores personal and group dynamics within the context of religion, setting up a metaphor of struggle and togetherness that can be extended to all relations in the global community. “For many of the dances, the stories are about Dorfman’s family…Holocaust survivors and immigrants, but the magic is that this is also a work about all of us” (Asbury Park Press).

Known as a creator of provocative dances that reflect her concerns about the human condition, Dorfman is interested in creating “worlds” into which the audience can enter. Since founding her Company in 1982, she has created more than 50 works for CDDC and achieved a highly respected position among artists and arts institutions regionally, nationally and internationally. A Michigan native, she received her BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and her MFA from New York University Tisch School for the Arts. She has been designated a Distinguished Artist and granted five Choreography Fellowships, including a 2004 Fellowship, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA), in addition to other choreography honors. Dorfman was the first artist to receive the prestigious, and nationally selected, Prudential Prize for Non-Profit Leadership in 1994. In 2004 she received the Jewish Women in the Arts Award for Dance from the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit and the Janice Charach Epstein Gallery.

Carolyn Dorfman presents Lecture and Masterclass on Thurs, Jan. 29

The William J. Cooper Foundation and the Department of Music and Dance invite you to attend a lecture by Carolyn Dorfman, Artistic Director of The Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company on Thursday, January 29, 2009 from 1:15 pm-2:30 pm in the Science Center lecture hall, Rm 001. This lecture will address the role of storytelling for children of Holocaust survivors. It is free and open to the public.

Carolyn Dorfman and company will also be offering an open class on Thursday, January 29 at 4:30 pm in Troy Dance Lab, Lang Performing Arts Center. All interested dancers are encouraged to attend. To reserve your place, contact Liza Clark at lclark1@swarthmore.edu, or call (610) 328-8260.

Known as a creator of provocative dances that reflect her concerns about the human condition, Dorfman is interested in creating “worlds” into which the audience can enter. Since founding her Company in 1982, she has created more than 50 works for CDDC and achieved a highly respected position among artists and arts institutions regionally, nationally and internationally. A Michigan native, she received her BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and her MFA from New York University Tisch School for the Arts. She has been designated a Distinguished Artist and granted five Choreography Fellowships, including a 2004 Fellowship, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA), in additional to other choreography honors. Dorfman was the first artist to receive the prestigious, and nationally selected, Prudential Prize for Non-Profit Leadership in 1994. In 2004 she received the Jewish Women in the Arts Award for Dance from the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit and the Janice Charach Epstein Gallery.

Fall Student Dance Concert Dec. 5-6!

The Department of Music and Dance presents the Fall Student Dance Concert on Friday, December 5 at 4:30 pm and Saturday, December 6 at 8 pm in Pearson-Hall Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center. The concert features works choreographed by faculty and students in diverse dance genres including African dance, Japanese folk and classical dance, modern, and tap.

The Japanese Folk Dance repertory class, taught by Cornell Visiting Professor Isaburoh Hanayagi, will show a folk dance from Okinawa, along with a specially choreographed work that combines fundamental movements from Noh and Kabuki theater. The Dance & Drum Ensemble will perform a work set by guest artists Jeannine Osayande, Alex Shaw and Wesley Rast based on rhythms from Haiti. Dance Majors Tavia Odinak ’09 and Carmella Ollero ’09 premiere new contemporary works. Visiting artist Jumatatu Poe ’04 presents a choreographed work for eleven students that delves into the theme of youth identity.

The performances are free and open to the public without advance reservations. For more information call (610)328-8260 or email lclark1@swarthmore.edu.

Kim Arrow`s dance videographies will screen in Bangalore, India and Sao Carlos, Brazil in November, `08 and February, `09

Kim Arrow’s videography, Quasimodo in the Outback , will be screened on February 10th and 11th for the International Dance Film Festival, Attakkari India Biennial 2009 in Bangalore, India. Invited as a ‘delegate to Bangalore,’ he will participate in the week-long event.

Shot mostly in Australia, Quasimodo in the Outback is an allegorical journey–inspired by Australian Aboriginal imagery–whose ascent from within the earth, to the world, and return, seeks to find a relational space between subject, object, and place. Employing various modes of camera and production techniques, Quasimodo blurs the lines of subject embodiment in order to operate in a trans-cultural environment as a metaphor for sanctuary, warning, marginalization, and hope.

Arrow’s short ROOPER which premiered for Philadelphia’s international dance film festival Motion Pictures Festival-Shorts Blast Program last June, will screen November 22, 2008 for II São Carlos Videodance Festival, an international dance film festival in San Carlos, Brazil. ROOPER was shot in Australia in 2007 using power stilts and a mob of kangaroo.

Shen Wei Dance Arts on Campus!

Please join us as the Swarthmore College Department of Music and Dance and the William J. Cooper Foundation presents Shen Wei Dance Arts on Friday, October 24 at 8 pm in Pearson-Hall Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center.

Hailed by The New York Times as “startlingly imaginative,” Shen Wei Dance Arts invests in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural performance for forwardlooking audiences. Each work by Artistic Director Shen Wei develops an original dance vocabulary incorporating visual and storytelling elements from the theater, Chinese opera, Eastern philosophy, traditional and contemporary visual art, and sculpture. The result, which is at turns figurative and abstract, combines performance with strong scenic elements to create a “fascinating fantasy in movement” (Herald Sun). At Swarthmore, Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform two acclaimed works from their repertory: “Rite of Spring” and “RE- (Part One).”

This event is free and open to the public without advance reservations. For more info contact lclark1@swarthmore.edu or call 610-328-8260.

Shen Wei and dancers will also conduct a masterclass on Thursday, October 23, from 4:30 pm-6 pm in Troy Dance Lab, Lang Performing Arts Center. This event is open to the public with space priority given to students and Swarthmore faculty and staff. Please arrive early to reserve your space.

This Is Your Brain On Dance – Dance Interest Meeting 10/8

The Dance Program invites you to an informal meeting!

Wednesday, October 8, 12:15-1:15 pm

LPAC LOBBY

Refreshments will be served

Talk to faculty members, guest artists and students about:

new courses and performance opportunities
interdisciplinary and intercultural aspects of dance study
collaboration and study abroad
design and videography

Honors Dance major, Latika Young ’03, wins Fulbright

Latika Young ’03 has won a Fulbright Fellowship for 2009. An honors dance major with a minor in environmental studies, Latika will teach English to students at the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina and will advise on educational matters for the university and for outreach projects.

In addition, she will create a video documentary that explores how artistic practices connect across socio-political boundaries within the country. Having become interested in the post-socialist state while studying abroad with the Swarthmore program in Poland, her most recent research took her to Kosovo in the summer of 2007, where she produced a documentary about the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica with students from around South East Europe.