Proyecto República Dominicana
January 22-23, 2010
Friday-Saturday
8:00 P.M. each evening, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Under the artistic direction of Penny Campbell, DCM questions the role of artists in society and the impact of early socialization through song and dance games. The investigation continues when the Company tours to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic to share their work with students and artist partners. Collaborators include Visiting Artist in Residence Christal Brown and guest musicians Michael Chorney and Arthur Brooks. Post performance discussion and reception on Friday. Sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance. Tickets: $10/8/6
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Stand
On January 23rd and 24th, 2009, the Dance Company of Middlebury presented STAND, an evening of work under the direction of Middlebury College Artist-In-Residence Leyya Tawil. STAND demonstrated a diverse stylistic range in contemporary dance through the work of choreographers Tawil, visiting guest artist Boris Willis and San Francisco-based artist Isabelle Sjahsam. The student ensemble of six included Caroline Rucker '09, Elizabeth Boles '10, Alena Giesche '10, Catherine Miller '11, Jeremy Cline '11,and Omar Carmical '12. Deb Sivigny, a guest artist in the Theater Program’s Costume Shop and a Middlebury graduate herself, designed original costumes for Tawil’s work. Lights for the evening were designed by the Dance Program’s own Jennifer Ponder.
Tawil created two works for the program. The first, a duet entitled Radar, was performed by Caroline Rucker and Omar Carmical to an original score by Detroit-based violinist Mike Khoury and tape-music artist Andrew Coltrane. The fifteen-minute duet was an intense physical exploration of distance, patience and hope. The dancers brought a focused professionalism to the work that deepened with every performance. Tawil also performed her own solo, Grace on a Friday Night, to an original score by new music composers Mazen Kerbaj (Beirut), Franz Hautzinger (Austria) and Mark Gergis (Oakland).
Boris Willis, a guest artist in the Dance Program during the Fall 2008, created a new 10-minute work for the ensemble. This is not about the War was a response to his experiences living as an artist in Washington D.C. in the post-September 11 climate. Audiences responded enthusiastically to the work’s athleticism and the dancers’ power.
During her brief 10-day residency, San Francisco-based choreographer Isabelle Sjahsam created a 30-minute work, Standing Mother, a feminized version of the Stabat Mater, a thirteenth century Roman Catholic hymn. Sjahsam selected seven musical versions of the Stabat Mater by three different composers to support her dance theater poem. The quartet (Geische, Miller, Cline and Boles) performed with classic and contemporary dance skill, absurdist theatricality and a keen musicality. Sjahsam’s celebration of goddess culture, which plays out through scenes of sacrifice, frolicking and healing, was a stunning example of postmodern dance theater.
The Company’s January premiere at Middlebury’s Mahaney Center for the Arts was met with great enthusiasm from the students, faculty/staff and off-campus community in attendance. The next morning, the Dance Company of Middlebury including the cast of six, Tawil and Technical Director Jennifer Ponder, flew to the Czech Republic for a residency at CESTA (Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor) in Tabor. During a cold week in residence we rehearsed and explored the historic town and arts community. Tawil offered a workshop in contemporary dance to the professional dance community of Tabor, assisted by student members of DCM. The company performed STAND at the Spectrum Theater in the neighboring city of Sezimovo Usti II, co-produced by CESTA, Spektrum Theatre and DCM. The 300-seat theater was filled and the Company was warmly received by the Czech Republic audiences. Before leaving the mystical country, the Company spent a day in Prague visiting castles, cathedrals and museums.
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I'M RIGHT, YOU'RE WRONG
For the 2007-2008 season, the Dance Company of Middlebury will develop and present I'm Right, You're Wrong, a multi- media dance theatre performance. The one-hour piece conceptually looks at the question of "what is justice?" and explores both the compassionate and destructive onsequences of conflict. The performance operates within an interactive media environment by real time digital artist Marlon Barrios Solano. Using an array of cameras, computers and projectors, Solano creates a landscape where the dancers trigger and interact with sound textures and video images that transform the space.
Solano uses improvisational software to capture and manipulate images of the performers and the space in real time, creating a feedback loop in which the images influence the movement and vice versa. This process, combined with prerecorded footage and still images, integrates a matrix of technology that evokes questions of privacy, observation, our impact on our surroundings, and our increasing dependence on digital input to perceive and interpret the world around us.
The work engages five Middlebury students in the creative process of constructing and developing the piece during the Fall Semester 2007 and Winter Term 2008. Company members include Alena Giesche '10, James Gutierrez '07, Adriane Medina '08, Yina Ng '09, and Simon Thomas-Train '09.
In addition to creating I'm Right, You're Wrong as an ensemble, the students will have the opportunity to travel into the community to work with people who are in direct dialogue with the question of justice. Workshops with women at the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Windsor, Vermont, will provide students a window into an environment where women are struggling to come to terms with the consequences of their actions or are questioning the injustices of an imperfect system.
I'm Right, You're Wrong will premiere at Middlebury College in the CFA Dance Theatre at the end of Winter Term 2008. Additional regional performances will take place at the Southeast State Correctional Facility and at the University of Vermont in Burlington. In February, the company will take the piece on tour to the San Francisco/bay area for performances at Oakland School for the Arts, Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Mills College. In addition to gaining valuable performance experience, students will take dance classes, see performances by local companies, and absorb the spirit of diversity and experimentation so characteristic of this vibrant city.
Event Schedule
November 1, Thursday
3:00-4:15 p.m. Mahaney CFA Dance Theatre
Master class with Marlon Barrios Solano: Interactive Technology and Improvisation
November 2, Friday
4:30-5:30 p.m. Mahaney CFA Dance Theatre
Informal showing of the work Solano has developed with the company
December 6, Thursday
4:30-5:30 p.m. Mahaney CFA Dance Theatre
Informal showing of the work in progress
December 8, Saturday
2:00 p.m. (tent.) University of Vermont
Informal showing of the work in progress
January Date TBD
Time TBD Southeast State Correctional Facility, Windsor, VT
Movement class and showing of work
January 22, Tuesday
12:30 p.m. Mahaney CFA Dance Theatre
Behind the Scenes lunch and discussion
Artistic Director Tiffany Rhynard leads a discussion about the upcoming performance of I’m Right, You’re Wrong and previews excerpts of the company’s newest work.
January 24, 25 Friday and Saturday
8:00 p.m. Mahaney CFA Dance Theatre
The Dance Company of Middlebury premiers I’m Right, You’re Wrong, directed by Tiffany Rhynard. This interdisciplinary and multi-media performance investigates the complexity of conflict and consequence of action. Through the medium of dance and video, the evening length piece dissects the intricate layers of equality, privilege, and justice. An interactive media interface created by New York based artist Marlon Barrios Solano engages performer and audience in technological communication, encouraging the viewer to act as witness, judge, and jury. Funded in part by the Academic Outreach Endowment, the Committee on the Arts, and the Dance Program.
Tour to California:
January 29, Tuesday
2:00 p.m.
workshop for Oakland School of the Arts students
January 30, Wednesday
7:00 p.m.
Performance at Sacramento State
Solano Hall Dance Space
Sacramento CA
FREE
For information: 916-278-6368
February 1, Friday
7:00 p.m.
Performance at Mills College
Haas Pavilion in Studio One
5000 AmcArthur Blvd.
Oakland CA
FREE
For information: 510-430-2175
February 2, Saturday
8:00 p.m.
Performance at Monterey Institute for international Studies
Irvine Auditorium, The McCone Building
499 Pierce St
Monterey CA
FREE
For information:
831-647-4100
February 3, Sunday
8:00 p.m.
Performance at Temescal Arts Center
511 48th St @ Telegraph, near MacArthur BART
Oakland CA
FREE
The Company
Director
Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance 2006-2009, Tiffany Rhynard is interested in the exchange between movement and image, specifically in dialogue with the study of human behavior. Rhynard made the transition to dance from visual art during her undergraduate tenure at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she received her BA in Dance. She holds an MFA in Choreography from the Ohio State University where she concentrated in digital video. She has taught at Peace College, North Carolina Governor’s School, Ohio State University, State University of New York at Potsdam, and as a guest artist at Dickinson College.
As a performer, Rhynard has worked with various choreographers including Chavasse Dance and Performance Group, Brosseau Danceworks, X Factor, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, Gerri Houlihan, and John Gamble Dance Theater. Her choreography has been presented extensively throughout North Carolina in addition to venues nationwide. Her video works have been screened at film/video festivals including the Dance for the Camera Film and Video Festival in Salt Lake City and Dancing for the Camera at the American Dance Festival. Recent video projects include the documentary Women Building Larger Lives, a film illuminating the strength and resiliency of incarcerated women working in a vocational construction program at the state women’s prison in Windsor, Vermont.
Collaborators
Jennifer Ponder has been the Lighting Designer and Technical Director for the dance program since l997. She has designed lighting for theatre and dance in VT, NY, TX, VA, MA, including Shadowland Theatre, SUNY New Paltz, Bennington College, the Yard, the Kennedy Center, the Dallas Theatre Center, Glimmerglass Opera, the American Dance Festival, Cuba, and various tiny theatres in NYC. She holds an MFA from Southern Methodist University.
Marlon Barrios Solano is a Venezuelan independent dance/new media artist, teacher and researcher, based in USA since 1994 (New York City and Columbus, Ohio). He holds an MFA in Dance and Technology (Independent track: Dance improvisation, real-time multimedia and cognition) from The Ohio State University. Since 2001, with dancer collaborator Kristin Hapke, he directs, performs, researches and designs improvisational performances and within digital real-time environments under the art/research project Unstablelandscape. Recently, he collaborated with the programmer and sound designer Patrick Delges (Belgium) on the development of interactive systems for improvisational dance and with the choreographer Bebe Miller (USA) on the real-time video design of her new work on DCDC Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (premiered in February 2005). He has been an artist in residence at The Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design, The Ohio State University, at STEIM (The Netherlands), and Swarthmore College (USA); participated in festivals and lectured internationally on improvisation, interactive media and perspectives on embodiment in Venezuela, Austria, Scotland, Great Britain, Poland, Estonia, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Greece and the USA. As a professional dancer in USA, he performed with New York choreographers Susan Marshall, Lynn Shapiro, Merian Soto, Dean Moos, Bill Young, among others, and with the musicians John Zorn, Philip Glass and Eric Friedlander.
Performers
Adriane Medina ’08, from Boca Raton, FL, is a dance major and elementary education minor. Adriane fell into the Middlebury dancing scene in the fall of 2004 and has been a part of nearly every Dance Program production since. She is a member of the Middlebury tap dance troupe, On Tap, and teaches pre-ballet classes to children. Adriane was a member of DCM in 2005-2006 with director Amy Chavasse.
Alena Giesche'10, a transfer student from Alfred University, is now a sophomore at Middlebury College. She is majoring in Environmental Studies and International Studies. Studying for 13 years in ballet and modern technique, Alena worked with professionals from the New York City Ballet Company in the summer of 2005 and with John Giffin at Alfred, spring 2007. Her first choreography project was a contemporary ballet piece, shown at Alfred in June 2007. This year, she is part of Yina Ng's student choreography project, and she is excited for her first year at Middlebury with the dance company and Tiffany Rhynard.
Simon Thomas-Train'09, a junior Dance/Pre-Architecture major, has always been fascinated by the manipulation and creation of spaces and space. Though he didn't know it when he enrolled at Middlebury, these interests would propel him headlong into the dance department. His study of dance has been heavily supplemented by architectural studies as well. Simon attended the Bates dance festival in the summer of 2007 and enrolled at Connecticut College to study with David Dorfman for that fall semester. He is happy to be back at Middlebury for his second season with the Middlebury Dance Company and is looking forward to creating work with his peers in his remaining time. Simon would like to thank Tiffany Rhynard for all of her support through various changes and Andrea Olsen for helping him to discover new doors.
Yina Ng ’09 is a double major in East Asian Studies and Dance at Middlebury College. Inspired by Mark Stuver’97.5 and amazed at the strong focus on creativity in the dance program, she started dancing in spring 2006. She attended Bates Dance Festival in summer 2006 and 2007, studying modern technique, contact improvisation, and video work in dance. While dancing for different choreographers, she is also a choreographer herself, currently creating her own work to be presented in the Fall Dance Concert 2007. This is her second year working with Tiffany in the Dance Company of Middlebury. She is excited to be part of this project before her study broad adventure in Tokyo, Japan in spring 2008.
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