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
Website: dance.arizona.edu
Location: Stevie Eller Dance Theatre
Address: 1737 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
Friday, April 20, 7:30pm
Saturday, April 21, 7:30pm
Sunday, April 22, 1:30pm
Thursday, April 26, 7:30pm
Friday, April 27, 7:30pm
Saturday, April 28, 7:30pm
Sunday, April 29, 1:30pm
Ticket Prices: Adult $35 / Senior, Military, UA Employee $30 / Student $15
Tucson, Arizona ˗ Spring Collection offers eight diverse works, including five premieres and the sizzling work of guest choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie in Boiling Point.
Boiling Point, which had its world premiere with Atlanta Ballet in 2009, provides the centerpiece for this concert. Moultrie states that his primary inspiration for Boiling Point came from the score bearing the same title, and goes on to say that the music had “a sort of journey, like when you’re making tea and it starts calm and it climaxes to reach this loud, high-pitched whistle. I wanted to use that idea in movement…”
Moultrie is one of America’s very diverse and much sought after choreographers and master teachers, and he has created and staged his work for numerous professional companies, including Dance Theatre of Harlem, Milwaukee Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Ailey II, and others.
With Boiling Point as its closer, the program opens with a new creation by Autumn Eckman, A Lot Like Love, which explores the expressions, desires, feelings and emotional aspects of love as they are connected through music. Also on the program is her piece, Sardine, originally choreographed for the Bates Dance Festival in 2015. The piece investigates ways in which human interaction forms relationships. Incorporating highly physicalized methods of improvisational techniques, Sardine makes visible connections between our external world and internal states.
The Man Behind Duke, choreographed by Sam Watson, features the music of Billy Strayhorn who was the composer, lyricist, and arranger for big band leader Duke Ellington. Watson’s new piece for eight dancers features a selection of songs which Strayhorn himself performed in intimate cabaret settings. The compositions showcase a more personal side of Billy Strayhorn with arrangements scaled down to only piano and a rhythm section including lyrics that many times were never used in the versions performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The piece reflects back on the swing era taking inspiration from standard dance steps spanning three decades including The Shag, The Swingout and standard East Coast and West Coast Swing.
Retired Professor, Douglas Nielsen, returns to UA Dance to present An Inch for Beverly. The dance commemorates Beverly Blossom, a prolific choreographer and dancer who considered herself to be “an actor who danced.” Blossom created Inch in 1987. Two years later she invited Douglas Nielsen to perform it on her retirement concert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Now, in Beverly’s memory, Nielsen has restaged it as An Inch for Beverly. The piece will also be performed at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in June of this year.
In choreographic collaboration with the fourteen cast members, Amy Ernst’s new ensemble piece explores the complex journey of retaining one’s fundamental beliefs and certainty in the face of life’s often difficult challenges. Inspired by American poet Mary Oliver and composer Thomas Newman, Believe investigates the mysterious, often magical, relationship between faith and reality.
Michael Williams presents a new contemporary lyrical jazz piece to selections from Pink’s 2017 release of her album Beautiful Trauma. The piece for three couples entitled Sticks & Stones is meant to be a battle cry for positive evolutionary change and the personal and societal commitment it requires.
If You Don’t Like Me Today, Come Back Tomorrow, choreographed by Tamara Dyke-Compton, is a quirky, modern solo that explores the chaotic mind of a person afflicted with extreme moods, to the music of Zwirbeldirn.
Spring Collection — the final bouquet of the UA Dance 2017-18 Season. Enjoy its many colors!
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