For this concert, collaboration is the key. In addition to dances choreographed by students and by HSU dance faculty members Sharon Butcher and Deborah Ketelson, there is a dance created by a faculty member Jeff O’Connor together with a student Marisol Elizarraras.
Other collaborations involve dance choreographers and musical composers. HSU Music professor J. Brian Post composed the score for student Lela Annotto-Pemberton’s “Permutations.” Lela Annotto-Pemberton and Tara Lihn perform a duet, “Head and Heart,” that was inspired by an original vocal composition by music student Calista Labolle.
One student turned out to be a triple threat: music major and dance minor Jesse Franzen choreographed “First Pulse”, wrote the piano score for Edana Gentry’s “Origin” and accompanies several more dances on the program as a musical performer.
The musical collaboration didn’t end with the choreography — it will be present on stage. “We’re very excited by the number of live musicians who will be part of the performance,” said Sharon Butcher, HSU Assistant Professor and artistic director for this event.
Those musicians include a student jazz quartet for her own piece, “2nd Impression,” and drummers from the Arcata community creating Congolese rhythms for “Bokila-Elanga (Hunting-Harvesting),” choreographed by Deborah Ketelsen.
The collaboration even included a mathematician. “Lela Annotto-Pemberton’s ‘Permutations’ was created as a result of an interdisciplinary seminar, with Kyle Falbo, a student math major. The dance uses math equations and concepts to make decisions about how to space and move the dancers, ” Butcher said.
“Permutations” was selected to represent HSU at this year’s American College Dance Festival Conference in Salt Lake City, where it received high praise from internationally renowned dance professionals serving as the conference adjudicators.
Butcher’s interdisciplinary seminar encouraging collaboration led to this dance, and two more featured in the show: the 1960s spoof “Gosh It’s Fun: How to be Fruggin’ Groovy!” by Tara Lihn, and “Body Speaks” by Erin Reed and Sarah Cory.
“Body Speaks” involved several kinds of collaboration. “Erin Reed and Sarah Cory, worked with a photographer, Courtney Brown, to create a dance theatre piece.” Butcher said. “They have a multi-generational cast—the youngest is around eight and the oldest is 70 or so. There’s a spoken text written by the performers as well as the choreographers, about their own body images.
And not only does Sarah Cory perform, but so does her mother and her niece.” The music was composed by Jacqueline Dandenau, a well-known music and theatre artist from the Arcata community. “It’s such a lovely piece,” Butcher said, “so mature and tender and funny.”
PURE ABSTRACTION involves 30 HSU dance majors and 20 dance minors, as well as students from other HSU programs and dancers from the community.
In conjunction with the concert, HSU will hold its first annual high school dance festival called “Dance Day,” which provides a full day of dance classes, campus tours, advising sessions and informal performance in which students share their creative work.
The festival will have more than 120 students from Northern California and Southern Oregon. Dance Day is hosted by dance faculty and students from Interdisciplinary Studies: Dance Studies; Theatre, Film and Dance; and Kinesiology and Recreation Administration.
A silent auction fundraiser will be held in the lobby on Saturday April 19. Proceeds benefit the Dance Studies Program.
PURE ABSTRACTIONS, the HSU spring dance concert, plays for three nights only: Thursday through Saturday, April 17-19 at 7:30 pm in the Van Duzer Theatre on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets $10 general $8 students and seniors from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. A production of HSU Theatre, Film & Dance department; Sharon Butcher, artistic director. More information: Http://HSUStage.blogspot.com