Wexner Arts January/February 2010 : Page 2

onStage Merce cunningham Dance company Inaugural performance of the company's final international tour! Fri, FEb 12 |8 pm Mershon Auditorium members $32 (center orchestra and loge), $28 (side orchestra, rear floor, and mid balcony), $24 (upper balcony) general public $36 (center orchestra and loge), $32 (side orchestra, rear floor, and mid balcony), $28 (upper balcony) students $20 (upper balcony only) the legacy tour Join the Wexner center in celebrating the life and work of dancer, choreographer, and Wexner Prize recipient Merce cunningham, a radical innovator whose bold exploratory concepts and vital spirit will continue to resonate across all the arts for years to come. This concert, the first on the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s two-year Legacy Tour (which follows Cunningham’s death last summer at age 90), is your chance to see once more the contemporary master’s projects performed by the superbly trained dancers he worked with directly. The program features Crises (1960), a dance with costumes by Robert Rauschenberg set to music from Rhythm Studies for Player Piano by Conlon Nancarrow, and Split Sides (2003), a thrilling work of chance and collaboration featuring electronic scores composed by vanguard indie bands Radiohead and Sigur Rós. Presented with major support from the ohio arts Council and the National Endowment for the arts. Promotional support provided by 90.5-FM WCbE. Pre-concert talk Karen Eliot and David Covey Fri, FEb 12 | 7 pm Mershon Auditorium FrEE to all MCDC tiCKEtholDErs Two distinguished members of Ohio State’s Department of Dance offer insights into Cunningham’s work and his legacy, along with personal remembrances of their experiences working with Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Eliot as a dancer and Covey as a lighting designer and production manager. MAJOR PERFORMING ARTS SEASON SUPPORT EVENT SUPPORT Consulates General of the netherlands in new York and ChiCaGo 90.5-fM wCBe PROMOTIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY ACCOMMODATIONS PROVIDED BY

On Stage

Join the Wexner center in celebrating the life and work of dancer, choreographer, and Wexner Prize recipient Merce cunningham, a radical innovator whose bold exploratory concepts and vital spirit will continue to resonate across all the arts for years to come.

This concert, the first on the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s two-year Legacy Tour (which follows Cunningham’s death last summer at age 90), is your chance to see once more the contemporary master’s projects performed by the superbly trained dancers he worked with directly. The program features Crises (1960), a dance with costumes by Robert Rauschenberg set to music from Rhythm Studies for Player Piano by Conlon Nancarrow, and Split Sides (2003), a thrilling work of chance and collaboration featuring electronic scores composed by vanguard indie bands Radiohead and Sigur Rós.

Pre-concert talk Karen Eliot and David Covey

Fri, Feb 12 | 7 pm Mershon Auditorium Free to all MCDC ticketholders

Two distinguished members of Ohio State’s Department of Dance offer insights into Cunningham’s work and his legacy, along with personal remembrances of their experiences working with Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Eliot as a dancer and Covey as a lighting designer and production manager.

“he has taught Us something new And Powerful About how to dsnce And how to live.”

—mikhail baryshnikov

Head to wexarts.org to read essays by Karen Eliot and David Covey about their memories and thoughts about working with Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Here are brief excerpts to pique your interest.

Merce was active as a choreographer for over 60 years. In that time, he saw many dancers—myself included—come and go. He watched as generations of dancers arrived at his studio looking more athletic and more highly trained in ballet technique. Correspondingly, he was in large part responsible for training many of those highly virtuosic, rhythmically acute dancers who then dispersed across the world to build on what they’d learned from him. He observed his works inevitably change over the years as new dancers took on the roles he’d created for different bodies and personalities. This change delighted him, and instead of resisting it, he was invigorated when he saw his works assume new and unexpected dimensions.

The choreography itself has a kind of elasticity that permits young dancers to inhabit roles and make of them something entirely new. Merce’s confidence in his dancers and his trust in the process of growth and change was exhilarating for me; it did, however, make me feel the weight of the responsibility. I took this charge seriously, and his quiet trust in me prompted me to work as hard as I could to inhabit my roles and master my technique.

—karen eliot, professor, department of dance

When I was lighting director and production manager with Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1996 to 1998, I helped produce two world premieres, restage numerous dances from Merce’s repertory, and develop many “Events”—time- and site-specific collages of movement, created by linking together phrases from past works. On the day of an Event, we would all sit together on the stage in a large semicircle, and Merce would announce the casting and the order of the phrases. He spoke simply, the dancers moved, and I lit the space. If the company was presenting a series of Events in a given space, the casting, order of the phrases, sound score, and costuming changed for each performance. The décor (set) might or might not change. Lighting the Events was a thrilling opportunity to contribute to this particular aspect of Merce's collaborative process.

—david covey, professor, department of dance

grupo de rua

"H3 is often spectacular because of its highly energetic flow.”

—Corpus

Rising Brazilian talent Bruno Beltrão, a young choreographer based in Rio de Janeiro, infuses contemporary dance strategies with hip-hop attitude and action and has quickly become an international sensation. For his latest work, H3, Beltrão and Grupo de Rua—his impressive company of nine male performers—subvert the hip-hop clichés of showy acrobatic displays and macho stances. In their more nuanced approach, breakdance-accented footwork evolves into a pulsating rhythmic base, building an ambient minimalist structure in a series of electrifying duets and ensemble sections. Grupo de Rua’s performances have thrilled savvy audiences around the world and will captivate dance fans here too.

Hotel Modern

“A deeply original and enthralling piece of theatre… fits with chilling ease between childlike war games and serious comment.”

—Sunday Herald

Dutch theater ensemble Hotel Modern examines the universal tragedy of war with a startlingly novel dramatic concept: the entire stage floor becomes a miniature version of the Western Front during World War I. Company members with tiny video cameras roam this ruined terrain, capturing astonishingly realistic images that are projected above the set to detail the action. An idyllic cultivated landscape transforms into a battle-scarred vista of destruction before your eyes, as toy soldiers enact the brutal trench warfare. As you watch the inventive theater magic unfold, spoken passages from frontline testimonies and soldiers’ letters bring out the heartrending price paid by those who are caught in the storm of war.

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