The Department of Theatre and Dance is UNM’s best-kept secret.
“Meta Morph,” this year’s faculty dance show, will provide a glimpse into what the dance program has to offer, said Donna Jewell, department head and artistic director.
“There’s a lot of talent in the Department of Theatre and Dance,” Jewell said. “These are students who are going to go out and work in New York and L.A. and London. They’re going places, and I really wish the University knew more about them.”
“Meta Morph” has seven student performances in ballet, modern, tap, Mexican Folklorico and flamenco, choreographed by guest artists and faculty.
The show starts with Parsons Etude, a modern piece choreographed by David Parsons of Parsons Dance Company in New York. Jewell said every night features a different Mexican Folklorico dance from eight Mexican provinces.
“So this is really cool. We’re going to kind of go on a journey with that,” she said. “We’re going to be traveling all over Mexico.”
Sophomore Aaron Hooper, a dance and architecture double major, performs in the fourth act, É só Isso, choreographed by University of Iowa professor Armando Duarte. Hooper said the piece tells a story of discovery that begins on an individual level and ends with a communal feeling among the dancers.
“In the beginning, there’s this thought of, ‘I’m entering this new world with a connection to other people but with intention of my own.’ So when we enter through the space for the first time … the focus is on how new the place is to each individual,” Hooper said. “In the end, we’re all connected, and there’s so much eye contact and interaction among the dancers in the last section that there’s huge community collectiveness.”
After intermission, Jewell’s own choreography will be featured in a modern piece called 2 Steps Aside. Jewell said she drew inspiration for her choreography from a band she heard after one of her own performances.
“They were three guys from Switzerland called Bubble Beatz, and they were playing trash — oil drums and long PVC pipes that they were playing like didgeridoos,” Jewell said. “It was jaw-dropping. They were phenomenal. So I bought their CD and I was like, ‘I have to choreograph to this.’”
Following 2 Steps Aside is Nubes Centelladas, a flamenco piece choreographed by Eva Encinias-Sandoval and set to music by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi.
“What’s interesting here is that mine’s just percussive, percussive, percussive. And then we get to the flamenco piece, which is percussive with castanets and footwork, but it’s also melodic through the Vivaldi,” Jewell said. “I think the musical difference between the hard, brash percussion and the symphonic lushness of Vivaldi’s piece is a good contrast.”
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Through Your Eyes, a modern piece choreographed by full-time faculty and Brazil native Vladimir Conde Reche, closes the performance. Vladimir said human diversity and individuality inspired his choreography.
“There’s a huge space in the piece for the dancers to bring more of their individuality,” Vladimir said. “That’s the major thing for me in the choreography — who the dancer is. I want them to be themselves, be naked to what they are and let the audience see them for what they are, for the performance that they are.”
Although the piece is heavy with meaning, Vladimir said it ends lightly.
“A note that I give to the dancers is that there’s one thing that we do a lot in Brazil — we are not blind to all the things that are wrong and that we don’t like,” Vladimir said. “We see all these injustices, all these discriminations … and we try to change, but we don’t make our lives bitter by dwelling on them. We have a sense of happiness that persists, and that’s how we finish the piece, with that sense of happiness permeated in the air.”
Jewell said she chose Through Your Eyes as the closing piece because it epitomizes the endless transformations that occur throughout the show.
“As the artistic director, I saw his work and went, ‘Okay, great way to close the entire thing.’ For me, that was a pretty obvious choice,” Jewell said. “I had to decide what people are going to leave with. For Vladimir’s piece, there’s quite a human journey going on. It reflects all the different journeys and transformations throughout the whole show, and it’s very tangible. It’s something that people can really grasp on to.”
*“Meta Morph”
Rodey Theatre
March 5, 6, 12 and 13
7:30 p.m.
March 7 and 14
2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Tickets range from $8-15*
