FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Whitney Herr-Buchholz
Manager, Operations and Advancement
School of Dance, University of Arizona
Phone: 520.621.1263
Email: whb@email.arizona.edu
Location: Stevie Eller Dance Theatre
Address: 1713 E. University Blvd. Tucson, AZ 85721
Purchase Tickets: College of Fine Arts Box Office 520.621.1162 or tickets.arizona.edu
Show Dates and Times
Wednesday, November 15, 7:30pm
Thursday, November 16, 7:30pm
Friday, November 17, 7:30pm
Saturday, November 18, 1:30pm
Saturday, November 18, 7:30pm
Sunday, November 19, 1:30pm
Ticket Prices: Adult $35 / Senior, Military, UA Employee $30 / Student $15
Tucson, Arizona ˗ In Premium Blend, the UA Dance Ensemble takes on Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, the former Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet, current Resident Choreographer for American Ballet Theatre and MacArthur Fellow.
Also featured on the program is Meta 4, a powerful quartet created by modern dance icon Bella Lewitzky to a commissioned score by American composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Walter Kennedy, former Rehearsal Director of the Lewitzky Dance Company, staged the piece for the UA Dance Ensemble along with faculty member and former Lewitzky Dance Company member, Amy Ernst, providing rehearsal direction. Throughout Meta 4’s four movements, variations on a single musical and choreographic theme richly explore the definitions behind the Greek prefix meta, meaning “change” or “beyond.”
Jory Hancock and Melissa Lowe bring back their Spanish neo-classical ballet entitled Tonadas, to the live piano music of Mompou and Nin-Culmell. Suzanne Knosp, Professor and Music Director for UA Dance, and UA alumnus, Anton Faynberg, will perform the score.
UA Dance welcomes new faculty member, Autumn Eckman, whose choreography and performance will be front and center in a series titled Eckman Seasons containing three of her dances. The first of those dances, “Chicken Scratch,” is a contemporary duet that explores the “give and take” dynamics that propel friendship. It features a range of highly physicalized movement and partnering between its two performers. The second of those dances is the Ballet-based “Supermoon,” uniquely inspired by the polyphonic and polyrhythmic music of Afro-pop artist Zap Mama. This piece illuminates the relationship between music and the body—how they both serve as instruments for the expression of the soul. Last but certainly not least, Eckman herself will dance “And Sorry I Could Not Travel Both,” an autobiographical piece for solo performer based on the concept of choice, and originally inspired by Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled.”
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