When you're busy teaching students where their neutral pelvis is and how to pas de boureÇ all day, it can be difficult to get your own work out.
That's why UNM dance head Donna Jewell and instructor Bill Evans gathered UNM dance teachers together and arranged "The Many Faces of Dance," this semester's faculty dance concert.
An event like this doesn't come together overnight. Some of the pieces to be performed this weekend have been in the works for almost a year, featuring choreographic collaborations across national borders and celebrating landmark artists.
The first piece of the evening is "Rostros," a collaborative effort by choreographers Jennifer Predock-Linnell and Vivian Cruz. The contemporary dance piece will feature three video projections, two of which will move across the stage during the performance.
Sometimes pedestrian, sometimes elaborate and innovative, the piece deals with the isolation and faster pace of modern life coupled with the attempt to create relationships and build a community.
Predock-Linnell is a choreography professor in UNM's dance program and Cruz is a choreographer, dancer and video producer from Mexico City. They have been working together for nearly 10 years.
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Ballet teacher and choreographer Celia Dale, will present "Romeo and Juliet," a duet to Berlioz's "Adagio." Two guest dancers from Brigham Young University, Katherine Dixon and Adam Neil, will perform the love scene.
A section of the show called the "World Dance Suite" will be kicked off with Eva Encinias-Sandoval's flamenco piece "Zapateados." Each dancer in "Alma Flamenca," Encinias-Sandoval's ensemble, is equipped with a 6-foot long pole in addition to their shoes, which adds to the work's rhythmic complexity.
African dance instructor Rujeko Dumbutshena, choreographed "Transitions." Featuring live drummers, the piece uses moves from various dances performed in Dumbutshena's native Zimbabwe and other regions of Africa.
Organized largely into sets of complementary trios and solos, Dumbutshena expertly integrates traditional African dance forms into the forum of the European theatrical dance tradition. "Transitions" is a celebration of dance itself.
Pablo Rodarte, founder of the Dance Espa§a School of Flamenco and Spanish Dance will present "Guajiras," a flamenco piece performed by Aline Cassanova. "Guajiras" was originally a Caribbean rhythm with African roots that was eventually adopted by the Flamenco dancers in Spain.
Borrowing more from the Spanish classical tradition than Rodarte's peer Encinias-Sandoval, the piece is elegant and powerful.
Hip-hop and samba dance instructor Karen Price adds her hip-hop piece "Split-Personalities" to the show. Traveling through cut portions of current pop songs, the piece moves quickly and is athletic and angular in form and content.
Finishing off the survey will be "Yes Indeed!" a tap dancing piece by Bill Evans, modern and tap dance instructor at UNM.
As a finale, all five of the "World Dance Suite" ensembles will come together on stage for an improvised jam session set to the music of the African drummers.
