DT January News

Columbia College Chicago Panel

Tudor Trust Launches Archive
After two years of planning, the most comprehensive catalog of Antony Tudor’s work has been launched at www.antonytudor.org by the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust. The catalog contains archival images and Tudor’s 55 ballets with synopses.

The website was created so that generations of choreographers and teachers could have access to Tudor’s works and become inspired by them. His ballets include Lilac Garden, Dark Elegies, Leaves are Fading and Echoing of Trumpets, and countless 20th century choreographers have cited his influence.

Sally Brayley Bliss, sole trustee of Tudor’s ballets, says the website and catalog were born out of the Tudor Centennial celebration at Juilliard in March 2007. “We knew this was something we really had to do. We knew it’s important that Tudor’s ballets keep going into the future. His works are masterpieces,” she says.

The catalog went live in November and it features premiere dates for Tudor’s ballets, production credits, performance notes, revisions and stagings. Brayley Bliss says that for two years, she and her son, Mark Bliss, web designer William Solo, materials coordinator Adria Rolnick and Tudor Trust administrator Tara McBride held a two-hour weekly conference call to make the site as complete as possible. They collected materials from individuals and organizations including the Metropolitan Opera archives, Ballet Rambert, the New York Public Library and Juilliard. And this is only the beginning.

The Trust has plans to seek funding for a media project to include videos of Tudor’s ballets. It will also release a Tudor Centennial book and DVD. Brayley Bliss also has plans to create a Tudor syllabus for university dance departments.

“I hope it will bring some new people in, saying ‘I want to do his work,’” Brayley Bliss says. “I really care that he gets his due.”
  —Joe Sullivan

Columbia College Chicago Panels Discuss Music and Dance
Early into the first of two panel discussions on music and dance at Columbia College Chicago, moderator John Toenjes asked, “What does it say that we often speak of a dance’s musicality, but never the ‘dansicality’ of a piece of music?” Toenjes, music director of the dance department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), found his dozen panelists eager to dig into questions of hierarchy around how composers and choreographers collaborate.

In “Music and Dance: A Troubled Marriage?” a two-part discussion hosted by The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago last semester, topics included trends in music use for concert dance, the role of music in dance creation and the music knowledge dancemakers should have.

“All dance has its own musicality that is powerful and legitimate—none inherently needs sound,” local writer/dancemaker Asimina Chremos said. To her point, choreographer Shirley Mordine noted the silent technique classes of Erick Hawkins, Stephen Petronio and others. “Rhythm is the play in time of weight,” Mordine said, to which Jan Erkert, head of the dance department at UIUC, added, “Yes, and music is bossy.” Erkert believes it makes demands on dancers well before they absorb a teacher’s visuals.

Using a trio of Columbia College Chicago dance students, Erkert and assistant professor Paige Cunningham demonstrated their phrasework, while the musicians in attendance allowed them to experiment with the effects of different sonic environments.

Most panelists agreed that loud, definite downbeats keep dancers in close unison. But for exploration of dynamics and movement quality, there were different takes. Erkert said: “I like to get the dancers to a place of accuracy before I take away the rhythmic clues.”

Everyone agreed on one point: “All dancers,” Mordine said, “should start with tap.”
—Zachary Whittenburg
Photo courtesy of Columbia College Chicago

- Dr. Marion Coles, leader of The Silver Belles and wife of the late Charles “Honi” Coles, passed away in November. She was 94. In recent years, she had taught master tap classes in NYC and all over the country at NYU, Queens College, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Tulane University’s Jazz Project in 2000.

- The North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Award was given to Dr. Sue Stinson, professor of dance at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. For the past 30 years, Dr. Stinson has taught students from preschool to senior citizens. She is a founding member and former chair of Dance and the Child International, a nonprofit that brings dance education to children worldwide.
n In November, New Mexico’s Keshet Dance Company was awarded the 2009 Coming Up Taller Award from First Lady Michelle Obama. The award goes to outstanding out-of-school and after-school arts programs for children. Keshet has performed and conducted workshops in detention centers, youth shelters, schools and community centers all over New Mexico.

- Charles “Chuck” Davis received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from UMass Amherst in December. Davis’ African American Dance Ensemble was founded in 1984 and Davis has been an active leader in Afro-American dance since 1968. His work Blue Grass/Brown Earth was performed after the award ceremony.

- Ailey II dancers Ghrai DeVore and Renaldo Gardner, both 19, received scholarships from the Dizzy Feet Foundation. They will train at The Ailey School. Both dancers appeared on a November episode of “So You Think You Can Dance” in a segment about the Foundation, which was founded by the show’s producer Nigel Lythgoe, director Adam Shankman, judge Carrie Ann Inaba and actress Katie Holmes.

- Six dancers and choreographers received United States Artists fellowships in December. They are: Cambodian dance teacher Sophiline Cheam Shapiro; Hokulani Holt-Padilla, hula master; contemporary dancemaker Tere O’Connor; African/modern choreographer Reggie Wilson; and Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, directors of performance group Goat Island. Each fellowship awardee receives a grant of $50,000