Tucson: O-T-O Dance presents "FLYING, DANCE & FILMS II"

 

From: Chuck [mailto:chuck@otodance.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:36 PM
Subject: Press Release flyign dance june 07.doc

O-T-O Dance

More Information: Call O-T-O Dance at 624-3799 or e-mail anne@otodance.org

 

What: FLYING, DANCE & FILMS II

An amazing evening of dances in the air, on the ground and screenings of independent movement based films. Premiere choreography Annie Bunker together with new works by long time Tucson favorites Charlotte Adams and Sukie Keita. Films by artists: Chuck Koesters Jodi Kaplan of NYC and Gina Buntz of Michigan.

 

When:        Friday, June 15, 2007 8 PM

                  Saturday, June 16, 2007 8 PM       

 

Where:       The Stevie Eller Dance Theatre on the UA campus

                  For maps and directions, check the Orts web site, www.otodance.org

 

Tickets:      Advance: $12.00 for adults / $10.00 for students and seniors

                  At the door: $15.00 for adults / $12.00 for students and seniors

 

Availability: Antigone Books, 411 N 4^th Avenue 792 3715,

 

You can contact O-T-O Dance and reserve tickets directly by calling

624-3799, or e-mailing us info@otodance.org

 

Performance Description:

 

Following a successful run of Flying Dance & Films presented at the Fox Theater in 2006,

O-T-O Dance decided to assemble a second concert presenting a unique mix of two and three dimensional movement genres. Gracing the stage with strength, agility and beauty will be 12 of Tucson’s most accomplished contemporary dance performers.

“She Should  Know Better”, a quartet created over the last year by choreographer   Charlotte Adams in collaboration with three different casts, began its  initial  creation in Tucson with dancers Kimi Eisele, Amanda Hamp,  Lena Lauer, and  Nicole Stansbury.  After an intense and fruitful period, the rehearsals shifted to dancers at the University of Iowa where Adams is on faculty.   In the meantime Adams was  accepted to a three week choreographer’s  workshop at Dance Theater  Workshop in New York, where she hired four NY  dancers to workshop  and complete the piece which was presented in an informal  concert at  DTW in December 2006. The piece had its Iowa premiere in   February 2007 and has now come full circle back to Tucson to be performed in this concert.  Set to the haunting piano and vocal music of Robert Schumann, the piece in its most recent incarnation, will be performed by Amy Barr, Kimi Eisele, Katie Rutterer, and Nicole Stansbury.

Producer/Director, Jodi Kaplan presents “In The Blood”, a dance film which features the theatrical platform of the boxing ring and the intense movement of fighting. Kaplan brings a choreographic sensibility to this experimental short that explores the “dance” of boxing. “In The Blood” exposes the brute physicality of a sport that pushes its participants to their utmost limits, to the edges of physical force – one that, through its severity, captures the inexplicable will to live.

"Enough" by Sukie Keita is a modern work inspired by Kathryn Dunham with West African and Haitian folkloric influence. The dance signifies an examination of one’s feeling they are not enough to face their life and the world at large on a nearly daily basis.  It's about finding strength in community and the self to move beyond scarcity into abundance. Performing this quintet will be Kimi Eisele, Jennifer Eldred, Cavetta Green, Yarrow King and Sukie Keita, with live percussion by Frederik Malter and additional music and vocals by Mamani Keita, Sukie Keita and Mark Minelli.

Gina Buntz, Director of Dance at Cranbrook in Michigan contributes her dance film, “Let Go”, underwritten by the Florida Arts Council and Created in 2003. This film portrays a fast forward observation of a relationship's beginning, middle and end where the release of, the letting go resonates the strongest within the individual. The film duet, set to a score by Thomas Newman, is performed by Afua Hall, a principal with Philadanco and Demetrius Klein, Artistic Director of Klein Dance of West Palm Beach Florida

O-T-O Dance, Artistic Director Annie Bunker having completed her first full semester of teaching at University of Hawai’i will present three works. The first of two aerial premieres, “Pele’s Breath”, created in collaboration with husband Chuck Koesters is a masterful solo performed with a backdrop of lava flowing out of the Pu’u’O’o vent into the waters of the Pacific ocean on the island of Hawai’i .  Set to music by R. Carlos Nakai and Keola Beamer this dramatic work is homage to the goddess Pele and the belief of her metaphysical reality. In one Hawaiian legend, her people say, when Pele was young the centre of the earth glowed with her loveliness, and she was content for a million years to live in her house in the centre. Until one day, when Pele walked to the edge and met Ocean. Gradually, after several meetings, Pele and Ocean began to know each other, and a fiery love began to glow in her heart. Finally, as Ocean pleaded for Pele to let him into her house of flames, she curled her fingers into the edges of a crack and pulled it wide for him to enter. Ocean fell into her arms. This was the beginning of the marriage of Pele and Ocean. Some say that lava is the offspring of Pele and Ocean. "It is the fire of Pele that makes it red hot, and the water of Ocean that makes it flow like a mighty river."

Bunker’s newest aerial/modern group work is entitled “Contact”. Whether on the ground or in the air the dancers; Aja Kanub, Sukie Keita, Danielle Jones and Annie Bunker seek to touch; sometimes with actual physicality while at other times by an invisible line through space.

Tucson favorite, Film-maker/Composer Chuck Koesters will show his film “Life Under” set to his own musical score. “Life Under” captures the movement of creatures; sea turtles, mantas and various fish species that find their home in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Visually dramatic, Koesters takes us into another world where light dapples and swirls as the constant pulse of the ocean carries these gentle beings of the deep flying and floating through its currents.

“Points of Origin” by Bunker is a continued exploration of light moving through space with sculptural, dramatic and playful sensibilities. Inspired while pondering a life-long wonder about the speed of light in the universe and how much we actually see, how little we know and how big and simultaneously small everything is at the same time…  Performed to an original score by Laura Lee Coles a founding member of Population of Noise of Vancouver, B.C. “Points of Origin” will feature dancers, Aja Knaub, Danielle Jones and Sukie Keita.

Our performances are audience friendly; all the works are suitable for humans of all ages.  The doors open one half hour before the start of the show.

 

For maps and directions and other information, check the Orts web site, www.otodance.org 

 

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