Faculty Dance Concert Feb. 13-14

Contact: (336) 334-4314

Posted 1-15-09

GREENSBORO, NC — The Department of Dance presents an eclectic collection of works by five faculty artists at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 13-14, in Aycock Auditorium.

Tickets are $15 for general admission, $12 for seniors and students, and $9 for UNCG students. Parking will be available behind the Weatherspoon Art Museum. For reservations and more information, call the University Box Office at (336) 334-4849.

The artists have varied backgrounds as professional performers, artistic entrepreneurs and scholars. Duane Cyrus joined the faculty in 2005, John Gamble arrived in 1985. Larry Lavender and Jan Van Dyke have doctoral degrees, Robin Gee and Cyrus have MFAs. Gee teaches African dance, Lavender teaches dance criticism.

The five works are as different as the artists who created them.

• Cyrus will perform in “Improv on Three,” a collaborative improvisation developed by three performers and one designer who share a bond of race and gender. This work brings them together to express, through music, words, and movement, the history and memories they share. The work is particularly resonant in light of current events in politics.

• Gamble will show “Hearts in Mason Jars,” a dance for four women with music by Deb Davis and Claire Campbell, members of the Athens, Ga., band A HopeforaGoldenSummer. Gamble, Jennifer McNure, Pete Sangimino and Steven Smith perform the music.

• Gee will dance in a new solo work, “Erzulie/Oshun/Venus,” created for her by Duane Cyrus. Erzulie, Oshun, and Venus are Goddesses of love and beauty in the Haitian, Yoruba and Roman cultures, respectively. Music for this work will be by Richard Bennett.

• Lavender is the principal investigator and a performer in “The Practice of Existence.” The audience will be invited to walk around and view this dance in the round. Designed as a moment-to-moment creation, the performers forget about “dancing” and move together in an organic social structure.

• Van Dyke will show “Design for Ten,” a 2002 dance with music by Bobby McFerrin. Ten dancers create constantly shifting designs onstage as they perform to complex rhythms.