First-Year Seminar Presents
FYSEM Forum Event: Choreographer Mark Morris's Adaptation of Henry Purcell's Opera Dido and Aeneas
Monday, October 4, 2021
Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
4:45 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:45 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
FYSEM is delighted to announce our first FORUM event of the year: a screening of the modern dance piece DIDO AND AENEAS, with choreography by Mark Morris set to the music of the 17th-century English composer Henry Purcell.
The ill-fated love affair between Aeneas and Dido, queen of Carthage, is one of the most memorable and significant episodes of Virgil’s epic, dramatizing the human costs of the hero’s empire-founding mission: it has been adapted, riffed, and rewritten by a host of writers and creative artists over the past two thousand years. The most famous of these is Henry Purcell’s one-act opera Dido and Aeneas, written in the 1680s, which searingly presents the despair of the abandoned Dido. In 1995, the choreographer Mark Morris premiered his ballet, set to Purcell’s music, which amplified the story’s interest in gender: he himself danced the part of Dido.
Our event will consist of a screening of a performance of this 50-minute work, preceded by remarks by Aaron Mattocks, the former manager of the Mark Morris Dance Company, who will speak on elements of Morris’s technique and about “Dido” more specifically.
ATTENDANCE AT THIS EVENT IS MANDATORY. Masks are required and there will be room for generous spacing. Students who have special requests with respect to attendance are asked to speak with their FYSEM instructor.
The ill-fated love affair between Aeneas and Dido, queen of Carthage, is one of the most memorable and significant episodes of Virgil’s epic, dramatizing the human costs of the hero’s empire-founding mission: it has been adapted, riffed, and rewritten by a host of writers and creative artists over the past two thousand years. The most famous of these is Henry Purcell’s one-act opera Dido and Aeneas, written in the 1680s, which searingly presents the despair of the abandoned Dido. In 1995, the choreographer Mark Morris premiered his ballet, set to Purcell’s music, which amplified the story’s interest in gender: he himself danced the part of Dido.
Our event will consist of a screening of a performance of this 50-minute work, preceded by remarks by Aaron Mattocks, the former manager of the Mark Morris Dance Company, who will speak on elements of Morris’s technique and about “Dido” more specifically.
ATTENDANCE AT THIS EVENT IS MANDATORY. Masks are required and there will be room for generous spacing. Students who have special requests with respect to attendance are asked to speak with their FYSEM instructor.
For more information, call 845-758-7514, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:45 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater