VCU Dance NOW 2013

VCU Dance NOW annually features new work by VCU Dance faculty and guest artists, performed by Dance majors. This year, the Department is pleased to present choreography by faculty members Martha Curtis, Courtney Harris, Autumn I. Proctor, Judith Steel, and Christian von Howard as well as a new work choreographed by Fall 2012 guest artist Kate Weare assisted by Douglas Gillespie and 2003 VCU Dance alumna Leslie Kraus of Kate Weare Company. Spring 2013 visiting artist Stephanie Martinez will also bring a new work to the stage as part of the VCU Dance NOW program.

Kate Weare‘s work Murder Your Darlings, a term coined by British author Arthur Quiller-Couch, suggests that the destruction of whatever is precious is necessary in order to produce a good work. Using rhythmic footwork, fleeting spatial patterns and quick-changing entanglements, Murder Your Darlings paints a vivid picture of the chaotic rush and pull of our innermost emotional lives. A fierce evocation of attraction and allegiance within a group, Murder Your Darlings celebrates the willful, insistent pulse of desire in our lives – that we explore in order to understand ourselves.

Originally inspired by a wildly precarious and hilariously horrifying donkey ride down the mountainous coast of the Greek Island of Santorini, Staying in the Race is a new work choreographed by Martha Curtis. With costume design by Damion Bond, this large group dance mixes movement images and episodes with themes of day to day struggle, celebration, competition (including a donkey race), and mortality.

A duet choreographed by Courtney Harris, Tracking examines the regulation of bodies within prescribed spatial relations. While one dancer reinstates familiar rules by complying to linear pathways, the other resists the suggested promise of this fixed track. Through intimate partnering, the dancers convey the tension of this tethered and unyielding space, while maintaining their inherent connectivity.

Through a series of improvisational and structural explorations involving different forms of boundaries, Autumn I. Proctor‘s work Tethered Scope creates spatial and personal tension through physical, and energetic blocks within the human experience. Tethered Scope explores the challenges of external distractions through physical contact, gestural intricacies and unique spatial texture evoking an awareness within our scope that often remains masked by the barriers of choice.

A trio of dancers explores imagery reflected in Anais Nin’s short story by the same name Under a Glass Bell in an imagistic world that seems frozen in time and covered with dust. Judith Steel‘s new work combines fabric and light, illusion and reality; the cast of three women play out these forces in a rarified world of delicacy and strength.

Tiny Sisters, choreographed by Christian von Howard, explores the relationship of five women bound together by similar situations. In partnership with the music of Kevin Keller and Chris Lancaster, Tiny Sisters, reveals a complex struggle between faith, self-love and the prisons of life-servitude for many young girls.

The presenting program of VCU Dance is committed to building and engaging dance audiences in the University and Richmond communities while providing opportunities for artists to present and create work. The presentation of Kate Weare Company is made possible in part by grants from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Recognized by professional dancers and choreographers as “a place where things are happening,” Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography offers a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for careers in dance. VCUarts is ranked the #1 public university arts and design program in the country according to US News & World Report.