Dance Elixir 03/08-09/2008
Saturday–Sunday, March 8–9
8:00 p.m.
Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Dance Elixir
Artist in residence Leyya Tawil brings her company Dance Elixir to campus this March to present a powerful and insightful series that uses choreography grounded in the power, weight, and speed of the human body to investigate contemporary culture. The series, called Capital Life Triptych, features Tawil’s new work Capital Life, an investigation into culture and commerce, researched during her artist residency in Beirut, Lebanon, this winter. Additional collaborators include experimental-music artist Mark Gergis, known for his ethnographic research and composition in music and film; installer Malinda Trimble; costumer L eigh Anne Martin; and Dance Elixir’s resident composer Topher Keyes. Presented by the Performing Arts Series, this event is part of the Mahaney Center for the Arts’ Dedication and 15th Anniversary Celebration.
Tickets: $15/12/5
http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Associated events include:
March 4, Tuesday
Behind-the-Scenes Lunch and Discussion:
Leyya Tawil and Dance Elixir
12:30 P.M., Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Artist in Residence Leyya Tawil introduces CAPITAL LIFE TRIPTYCH and leads a discussion about the work’s choreography and outlook on contemporary culture, along with members of her company who share their insights. Lunch is provided. Free
For program notes, please contact Events and Residency Manager Allison Coyne Carroll at carroll@middlebury.edu
Biographies:
Dance Elixir
Artistic Director Leyya Tawil and Resident Composer Topher Keyes founded Dance Elixir in 2003. Together they pursue a collaboration based vision of contemporary dance creation and performance. Dance Elixir produces an annual home season in the San Francisco bay area and tours nationally. The artists of Dance Elixir are hailed for their glamorous aesthetic and fierce technique.
Leyya and Topher have been creating and producing work together since 1997 and their collaborations have presented by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival (San Francisco), Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Arab American National Museum (MI), Oakland Art Gallery (CA), West Wave Dance Festival, Women on the Way Festival, Venue 9 Womens’ Work Residency (SF), Dance Mission Theater Artist Residency (SF), USF’s Thacher Gallery, and at academic institutions nationwide. Dance Elixir has been featured on KGO’s Hot Picks (CA),
NBC11 (CA), KRON4 (CA), KNOE-TV8 (LA), KALX's "Women in the Arts" (CA), and WDET’s “Morning Edition” (MI).
They have collaborated with artists from a wide variety of disciplines, including composer Stephen Rush, media installation artist David Szlasa, designer Jeffery Bauer, scenic artist Doug Baird, video artist Cristina Waltz, lighting designer Matthew Antaky, visual artist John Writer, costumers Scott Tallenger and Leigh Anne Martin, percussionist Christopher Froh, double bassist Damon Smith, Nanos Operetta, violinist Mike Khoury, and others.
They have received support from the Oakland Cultural Funding Program, East Bay Fund for Artists/East Bay Community Foundation, Clorox Company Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Theatre Bay Area’s Cash Grant, Numi Tea, and other generous businesses and individuals.
Leyya Tawil
Artistic Director of Dance Elixir
Choreographer/Educator/Performer
"Tall, elegant, with limbs designed for the stratosphere, in her
intensity she suggested a tornado, yet her demeanor spoke of control and professionalism." --Rita Felciano, San Francisco Bay Guardian
Leyya Tawil is an active participant in the contemporary dance
community. Born in Detroit, Michigan to Palestinian and Syrian
parents, Leyya enjoys exploring aspects of contemporary urban culture through her collaborative projects. She works in a movement style that integrates momentum, precision, and personality. Leyya has performed, choreographed, and taught nationally for the last thirteen years. This January marks her first international collaboration with Maqamat Theatre Dance in Beirut, Lebanon. Leyya has held faculty positions at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Visiting Artist), the University of San Francisco and Sonoma State University. She is currently the Middlebury College Artist-In-Residence in Dance. Leyya is also co-director of the Temescal Arts Center, a low-cost performance and rehearsal space in Oakland, CA. She served on the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee (“the
Izzies”) from 2003-2006. Leyya received degrees in dance from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (BDA) and Mills College-Oakland (MFA).
Leyya’s work has received support from Theatre Bay Area/Dancers Group CA$H Grant, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, W&F Hewlett Foundation, W A Gerbode Foundation, the Clorox Company Foundation, the East Bay Community Foundation, City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, Numi Tea (business sponsor).
Leyya has worked as dancer/collaborator with Evelyn Velez Aguayo (1995-1997), Erica Essner Performance Co-op (1997-2000), Nora Chipaumire (2003), and numerous other dance artists.
Topher Keyes
Topher Keyes is the Resident Composer of Dance Elixir. He has also created original scores and sound design for Erica Essner Performance Co-op, EmSpace Dance, Shotgun Players, African American Shakespeare, Los Medanos College Theater, Black Box Theatre, and the Speakeasy Theatre. As an observer, performer, and collaborator, Christopher’s time in the bay area has helped him develop a greater interest and understanding of the dance world. Through participation in regular rehearsals and interaction with other artists his music is able to naturally emerge from the choreography as it develops. Though he works entirely with his electronic studio, Christopher uses organic sources for all of his work. This allows acoustic instruments, environmental recordings, and his own voice and body to become the soundscape from which his music comes. Topher has a degree in Music Education from Miami University and he also studied electronic music composition at the University of Michigan with Steven Rush and Evan Chambers.
Mark Gergis
Mark Gergis is an Oakland, California-based artist and performer. Since the late-1980s, he has produced and recorded volumes of original compositions and audio works. Mark is a co-founder of the experimental Bay Area music and performance collective Mono Pause and it’s offshoot Neung Phak, which performs inspired renditions of music from Southeast Asia. Both groups have enjoyed successful domestic and international tours. Additionally, Mark collaborates with numerous artists, both locally and abroad. Under the name Porest, Mark has released several critically acclaimed solo efforts incorporating multi-layered music, audio collage, field recordings and surrealistic radio dramas. Mark is an audio and film editor by trade and has composed for dance, film and theater in North America and Europe. Since 2003, he has actively partnered with Sublime Frequencies, an ethnographic music and film collective out of Seattle, Washington. In Sublime Frequencies, he has found a platform to aptly share decades of research and countless hours of archived international music, film footage and field recordings acquired during extensive travels in the Middle East and South East Asia. As these travels continue, several independently produced films and CD releases are concurrently in production.
Malinda Trimble
Set Designer/Installer Malinda Trimble received her dramatic education at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television (BA Theater) and New York University (MA - Arts Theory and Educationa). Since then she has designed, built, painted, and installed sets for the Palo Alto Childrens Theater (CA), UCLA, New York University, The Kitchen (NYC), The Geffen Theater (Los Angeles), and San Francisco companies Thunderbird Theater Company, HummingBirdWorks, Three Wise Monkeys Theater Company and Leyya Tawil's Dance Elixir. Malinda is head designer for ArtFace, a forward thinking artists live/work collective in the bay area. Her main emphasis is bringing the living into the static spaces that always exist in design, using elements such as water, scent, fire, plants, et al. She loves designing for dance works, breaking the usual planes and patterns found in the genre by creating physical environments that frame and support the live performers.
Leigh Ann Martin
Born in Virginia, costume designer Leigh Ann Martin studied art before settling in California where she spends most of her time designing and making costumes for theater and dance. She manages to work with clay and mixed media as a teaching artist at Creativity Explored: a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.
Company Website:
http://www.danceelixir.org/
Press Quotes:
"Top 10 Choreographers to Watch in 2006." --San Francisco Bay Guardian
“highly stylish” --San Francisco Chronicle
“riveting” --SFGate.com
“fast paced, impressively structured explosion of pure
movement” --Dance View Times.com
“a true testament that dance can communicate through
performance and design.” --Voice of Dance.com
“a modern dance feminist answer to Balanchine.” --In Dance (SF)
“witty and playful, with clearly focused energy.” --San Francisco Bay Guardian
“attractive for the newest audiences” --Delta Style (Louisiana)
“Tawil works with the dancers to create something
meaningful.” --Iowa State Daily
“glamour, seduction, and cool indifference” --San Francisco Bay Guardian
