The Bard College Dance Program Presents the 2012 Faculty Dance Concert

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College dance faculty and distinguished guests will present six dances in LUMA Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, April 27 through 29 at 7:30 p.m., and April 29 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, Bard alumni/ae, and non-Bard students, and free for the Bard community. Reservations are required. To purchase tickets or make reservations contact the box office at 845-758-7900.

Guest choreographer Peter Schmitz will join choreographers and Bard dance professors Aileen Passloff, Lenore Latimer, Jean Churchill, Peggy Florin, and Marjorie Folkman in this varied and stimulating evening of experimental dance, and which includes seasoned professional dancers Maria Simpson and Paul Matteson. Students of the Bard College Dance and Theater Programs will also perform. In Folkman’s new work, the music of Stravinsky will be played by Noémi Sallai ’15, a student of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. The lighting design is by guest designer Brian Aldous; costume design by Moe Schell. 

A Boston Globe dance critic wrote of Peter Schmitz’s work “...Skin ...an oddly majestic duet...where the partners get under each other’s skin...depictions of a couple who bind and split as they trace each other’s histories through touch.” For this duet, Matteson, who recently completed his fourth year as a member of the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company, dances with Maria Simpson. As a member of the Chamber Dance Company in Seattle, Simpson danced works by Isadora Duncan, Bill Evans, Mark Dendy, Zvi Gotheiner, Murray Louis, José Limon, Lar Lubovitch, Alwin Nikolais, Paul Taylor, Doug Varone, and Mary Wigman. 

Aileen Passloff’s work, I Love You, features seven student dancers, incorporating a variety of musical devices. Currently in her 41st year of teaching at Bard College, Aileen received her B.A. from Bennington College. She was the director of Aileen Passloff and Company from 1958–68, and choreographed and acted in plays for the Living Theater, Judson Poets Theatre, and Theatre for the New City.

Lenore Latimer has performed in dances by 23 choreographers but has worked longest with José Limon’s Company, 1959­–1969. She loved his work, his technique, and watching him create. Her dance this spring, entitled Vanishing Octet, set to music by Albinoni, is in the José Limon style.

Jean Churchill’s Gypsy Moth, inspired by Sir Francis Chicester’s account of his solo sail around the world, is performed by a dance major and a theater major of the senior class at Bard. Described as “inspired” by the Village Voice of New York, it was chosen for the celebratory concert Men Dancing in New York City in 1982. Churchill, a professional ballet dancer with the Boston Ballet at age 13, performed dances by ballet and modern dance choreographers including George Balanchine, Carolyn Brown, James Waring, Trisha Brown, Sara Rudner, Pearl Lang, and Norman Walker, before beginning to make her own work in experimental dance and opera.

Set to music by Dean Sharp, the new duet by Peggy Florin, The Volume Between Us, investigates concepts of spatial connection and the shifting, voluminous passage of energy that support us. Trained as a child in classical ballet, she performed with the Atlanta Ballet and as a soloist with the Manhattan Festival Ballet. She has appeared in works by many choreographers including Albert Reid, Phyllis Lamhut, and Charles Moulton, touring nationally and in Europe.

Marjorie Folkman created a new work for several of the dance majors, which will be set to Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo (1918) by Igor Stravinsky. Folkman was a member and principal performer with Mark Morris Dance Group (1996–2007), Martha Clarke Garden of Earthly Delights, Richard Colton/Amy Spencer, and Sara Rudner, among others.

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March 28, 2012

This event was last updated on 01-09-2013

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