Tucson Weekly: All Their Faculties (February 18

The UA Dance Division Offers A Heady Mix Of Styles And Subjects
By Margaret Regan
AT LAST FALL'S UA fine arts gala, four administrative bigwigs were drafted to dance.
Decked out in black leather and helmets, President Peter Likins, Provost Paul Sypherd, Fine Arts Dean Maurice Sevigny and Associate Dean of Fine Arts Steve Hedden zoomed onto the stage on Harley-Davidsons for a James Bond dance extravaganza called "008."
Review The work will be reprised at Centennial Hall this weekend in Premium Blend, the annual UA dance faculty concert--without, alas, its original administrative players.
"No motorcycles (or administrators) this time," apologizes dance division head Jory Hancock. He nevertheless promises "a more involved plot and a huge cast of 24 dancers, including eight to 10 men."
The Michael Williams jazz piece will open a concert that shows off what Hancock likes to call the division's "triple track of ballet, modern and jazz." Composed by UA dance profs, the works are performed by advanced dance students, though this year the show also brings in some non-UA artists, including a guest choreographer, musicians and video artists.
Modern dance choreographer Annie Bunker of Orts Theatre of Dance, for instance, collaborates with UA ballet prof Melissa Lowe on "Window in the Woods." Danced by the two women, the duet had its premiere in an Orts concert last fall. The piece is set to contemporary Celtic music that Bunker heard on a trip to Scotland last summer. When she got back, she found that Lowe shared her passion for the northernmost Celtic country.
"Both of us were entranced by the castles," Lowe says. "We both had photos of windows in the walls of castles." The images of the old stone openings are projected onto a castle-like set, which has a "woodland feel."
"We've known each other's work for 10 years," Lowe reports. "This collaboration was a long time in the waiting--We may eventually do a whole evening of work together."
Lowe's "Mountain Songs," a narrative ballet in six movements, also has a geographic inspiration. After hearing a "beautiful arrangement" of traditional Appalachian tunes for flute and guitar, Lowe started studying up on the European immigration to the hill country.
"I did some reading about the early settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland who worked the land," Lowe says. "The land was so tough, a lot of people died."
Her ballet for nine dancers evokes Appalachia's bittersweet history, told through the eyes of a young girl whose father disappears on a search for better soil to till. (Hancock, Lowe's husband, plays the father.) The music that triggered the work will be played live.
"The two musicians are right there on stage as part of the piece. They're in a treehouse, perched above the stage."
Also on the program: Dance prof Nina Janik worked with local videographers David and Cyndee Wing for her multimedia piece "Om, A Meditation for the New Millennium." Inspired in part by Ellen Bromberg's "Falling to Earth" of last season, Hancock says the rock-music work features video images of dancers dancing on screens, while the real-life dancers move across the stage. Susan Quinn, a jazz choreographer who trained at the Joffrey Ballet, presents her jazzy "Particle Ballet" for 10 dancers. John M. Wilson does some visual punning in "The Merengue Comes Home to Roost." Fusing meringue (the sweet made of beaten egg whites) with merengue (the Latin ballroom dance), Wilson has his seven dancers whirling like egg beaters.
Amy Ernst, the division's newest prof, contributes "Songs of Sanctuary," a modern dance for an octet of women.
"It's a beautiful piece that deals with images and movements about women supporting each other," Hancock says. "It captures an incredible range of motion."
Hancock likes the piece so well he hopes to enter it in a competitive dance festival. In the meantime, the work gives the concert at least a tangential connection to the high-up rulers of the university. A few days after the public concert, Ernst's students will perform excerpts from the piece in a presidential command performance for the Arizona Board of Regents. The cabaret-style evening will be private, but Hancock hopes for some public benefit.
"It's always a good idea for (administrators) to see what we do," Hancock explains. Even if they're not on motorcycles.
The curtain rises on the annual University of Arizona dance faculty concert, Premium Blend, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, February 19 and 20, at UA Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. Tickets are $10 general, $7 for students and seniors, available at the Centennial Hall box office. For more information, call the dance division at 621-4698.

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