Hobart and William Smith Colleges

20 April 2010 Faculty Dance Concert This Weekend

The annual Faculty Dance Concert will take place in the Winn-Seeley Theater on Friday, April 23 and Saturday, April 24 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, April 25 at 2 p.m. Audience members will enjoy the concerts blend of modern dance, jazz, theatricality, and visual design.

Assistant Professor Michelle Ikle asks the audience to consider what tempts you? in her new contemporary jazz solo Tempted. Performed to a score by Music Department adjunct faculty member Gregg S. Christiansen, Tempted explores the range of temptations that surround us and the consequences of giving in to those temptations. Ikles project was supported by a faculty research grant. This semester, Ikle also collaborated with eight William Smith dancers on a new work that explores communication-or more specifically, miscommunication. In It Goes Without Saying, movement dialogues have been created to reflect scenarios where miscommunication occurs. Music composed by Ennio Morricone, performed by Yo-Yo Ma with the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra supports the range of emotional content in the dance.

Histories Transparent was choreographed through a collaborative and personal process guided by choreographer and Assistant Professor of Dance Missy Pfohl Smith and the nine William Smith student cast members. This dance investigates unwanted touch and how it might affect who we are and how we cope. Smith will also reprise a solo excerpt from Twilight Falling in Your Eyes,choreographed in 1995 by Paul Mosley. This Ella Fitzgerald ballad turns an innocent young woman upside down as she gazes at the stars and falls in love.

Associate Professor Cadence Whittiers theatrical duet Spin comically and satirically explores the spin of political pundits. The dance begins with Ikle and Whittier sitting atop two spinning stools. As the piece progresses so does the spin: gestures become distorted and ambiguous and movements become dizzying and exaggerated.

Professor Cynthia Williams and 10 William Smith dancers explore the multiple possibilities presented by cardboard boxes and the formal structure and lyrical melodies of Bachs Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello. Configured on the one hand as a visualization of Bachs suite of dances, the piece plays with the metaphors created by an examination of boxes: boxes as moving cartons, boxes as packages, shadow boxes, shoe boxes and more.

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door. HWS students are admitted FREE thanks to the generous support of William Smith Congress and Hobart Student Government.