NewsRelease

Van Dyke Dance Group to Perform in Portugal
UNCG Concert will preview European show
 
 

The Jan Van Dyke Dance Group will perform "Day's End" first at UNCG and then in Portugal. The dancers are Kate Clodfelter (on floor) and standing left to right, Laura McDuffee, Katie Baker, Shawn Bowman-Hicks and Kate Shugart.

GREENSBORO - The Jan Van Dyke Dance Group has been invited to perform at the Almada Dance Festival in Portugal in late October.

The festival takes place over three days and involves 35 international companies. It is the biggest event of its kind in Portugal and includes performances, workshops and conferences. Running concurrently, the Universidade Technica de Lisboa will be holding a conference on community dance where UNCG professor of dance Jan Van Dyke will present a paper titled “The Local Connection: The Local Artist in the United States.”

Prior to the international trip, the company will present two concerts at the UNCG Dance Theater.  Included in the UNCG program is the modern dance, “Day’s End,” which will be performed in Portugal. The shows will take place Friday and Saturday, Oct. 3 and 4, at 8 p.m. The company will perform both old and new work:

• UNTITLED ELEGY (premiere) is a work which speaks to the malaise of our time.  It is performed by six dancers to music by Arvo Part.

• WALTZ (1973), held over from last year’s UNCG concerts, is a solo danced to music by Johann Strauss, Jr.  This dance was performed by Jan Van Dyke throughout the 1970s and ’80s; Virginia Freeman performs it now.

• DESIGN FOR NINE (2002) unfolds as a series of complex spatial patterns conceived to music by Bobby McFerrin.

• QUATRE FEMMES (1997), an old favorite, depicts the close relationships women form and how, as they mature, individuals break off to go their separate ways. The quartet is danced to music by Deep Forest.

• DAY’S END (2001) is performed by five women to music by the Finnish group, Varttina. A comment on today’s fast-paced world, the piece has everyone busy, always talking, no one listening, and continuously moving fast.

Tickets for the UNCG show are $12 for general admission, $9 for students and seniors, and $6 for UNCG students.  For reservations and information, call 334-4849.  Entrance to the theater is on Walker Avenue, across the street from the parking garage.
 

 The Jan Van Dyke Dance Group is the professional company in residence in the UNCG Department of Dance. Active since 1989, the company is known for dynamic energy and rhythmic precision. Her dances are highly structured and meticulously crafted. Jan Van Dyke has been making dances for over 35 years and has shown choreography widely throughout the United States and in Europe. She is a professor of dance at UNCG, a recipient of a NC Choreography Fellowship, and a 1993 Fulbright Scholar. In 2001, she was honored with the North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Award for contributions to the development of dance in the state.
 
 

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