MFA Dance Concert
M.F.A. Dance Concerts are platforms for M.F.A. students to integrate concepts from across the required core courses (Representation, Collaboration, Improvisation, and Experimentation) and develop over several quarters a clear choreographic inquiry. Experimental in nature, M.F.A. Dance Concerts may take different forms. M.F.A. Dance Concerts demonstrates the M.F.A. student's thorough investigation and committed execution of a defined aesthetic concern. The concerts are as much an investigation into process as performance, and M.F.A. students are challenged to produce complex, engaging, and exciting new work through the application of experimental choreographic methods introduced in their individual project proposals.
M.F.A. Dance Concerts are in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance.
Past M.F.A. Dance Concerts:
I was cooler then.
Alison Bory, M.F.A./Ph.D. student/choreographer
April 20-22, 2006
ARTS Performance Lab
I was cooler then. Is fictional dance memoir of the choreographer's more awkward days is a semi-autobiographical, theatrical portrait based in images of high school, adolescence and an acne-induced understanding of identity. Combining dance, text and a soundtrack of the formidable years, the work remembers and re-imagines the uncomfortable moments and seemingly inescapable truths of the teenage years. The performance, which seeks to illuminate the constructed nature of identity while exploring the shared histories that seem indicative of that construction, aims to unpack what makes this time so fundamental to an understanding of selfhood. Presented as a single work, the piece includes a continuous series of solos, duets and the occasional ensemble dance that reference the cultural vocabularies and personal experiences of the performers.
I was cooler then. was created by Alison Bory in collaboration with dancers Ramie Becker, Jennifer Buscher, Pamela Mikkelsen, David Ramos, Rosie Trump and Nicole Zimmerman.
Alison Bory, a third-year student in the MFA/PhD dual track program in the UCR Department of Dance, holds a BA from Mount Holoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. An East Coast native, she has shown her dance work in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and North Carolina. Both her choreographic and academic research investigate the political and social implications of performing autobiography and staging the self.
…And Other Fine Ways to Make Sense of it All
Shakina Nayfack, M.F.A./Ph.D. student/choreographer
February 16-18, 2006
ARTS Performance Lab
An evening of dance vignettes reflecting on life, love, and the collision of our own contradictions as seen through the prism of queer identity, where sexuality, spirituality, body, and desire, refract one another, skewing fragments of rose-tinted light on the fallout of heartbreak. Performances by Shakina Nayfack, Ramie Becker, Nina Galin, Paul Michael Atienza, Marvin Quijada-Rivas and Herminio Velazquez Esquivel.
Shakina Nayfack holds a B.A. in Community Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Theatre Arts from University of California Santa Cruz, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Dance and a Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory and at UC Riverside as a Chancellor's Distinguished Scholar.
As a performance artist, theatre director, and educator, Nayfack works to explore the social and political efficacy of post-modern ritual in process and performance. Nayfack's ethnographic approach to dance research and choreography draws upon holistic and experimental investigations of identity, stemming from a background in community activism, health education, applied anthropology, and performance studies. Nayfack has trained extensively in Butoh Mexicano with Diego Piñón, and is also the founding artistic director of Ragesties: Experiments in Performance (2001-present, www.ragesties.com).
This is a Story…
Margit Edwards, M.F.A. student/choreographer
December 8-10, 2005
ARTS Performance Lab
This is a Story... is an evening-length, multi-media dance/theater performance examining the choreographic possibilities of storytelling and family collaboration by choreographer and MFA candidate in Dance, Margit Edwards. This is a Story... is an expression of Margit Edwards' engagement with the choreo-stories of folkloric Afro-Brazilian dance, the conflict between academic analysis and creative artistic production and the mythological stories of family that often drive our creative artistic (and scholarly) pursuits. Drawing from her own family stories as well as those of the five dancers joining her, This is a Story... is a series of solos, duets and group works that focus on the bodily experience of telling stories and listening to stories using the aesthetic and structural principles of the Afro-Brazilian Orixas (or gods and goddesses). Ogum and Oxum weave throughout the evening, providing a thematic point of departure for the stories and characters that emerge: a dance scholar who struggles to reconcile the difficult task of dancing culture while critiquing the very project she is attempting to perform; a trio of overlapping Ogum warriors in mortal conflict with a pernicious fly; a two-headed, eight-limbed storytelling monster that is trying to tell Grandmother stories; and a family gathering where many stories are told, re-told, listened to, and not. The sets were conceived by father and artist Melvin Edwards, the costumes designed by sister and artist Ana Edwards, and the music composed by brother and musician/composer Denardo Coleman.
Margit Edwards has spent the last 10 years studying Afro-Brazilian contemporary dance, which led to a masters degree from the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures and a masters thesis titled To Live Brazil: An ethnography of Viver Brasil Dance Company in Los Angeles. She also produced Culture Crossing: an Inter-cultural Performance Project while attending UCLA. Margit has appeared onstage in New York and Los Angeles as a dancer and actress, and as artistic director of Prymari Colors Theater Company in Long Beach, California. She produced a successful solo performance series that included her one-woman show, Bi Myself, as well as writing and directing The Chlory Story: Gull Creek Stories. As a performing member of Viver Brasil Dance Company, Margit has had the pleasure of performing throughout Southern California.
In Place: Dancing through Downtown Riverside
Melanie Kloetzel, M.F.A. student/choreographer
May 13-15, 2004
Site-specific
The evening's five parts combine for a lively and surprising exploration of Riverside's historical, social, and architectural past and present. Throughout the evening, the audience will be guided into different parts of the mall and UCR/CMP, traveling through the space as they learn about the idiosyncrasies of Riverside's public spaces. As the audience gets swept up in the tour of live music and dance, they will get to experience performers scampering up trees, jumping and spinning underneath the audience's feet, flipping through bushes, and even holding an uproarious auction.
Ms. Kloetzel will be joined by Kelli King and Laura Johnson (acclaimed performers with the Susan Rose Company), Karen Ivy and Amber Young (former dancers with Malashock Dance in San Diego), and Alison Bory and Nina Galin (Ph.D. students in UCR's Dance History and Theory Program). Live music will be provided by Jay Ammon and the Dumpster Orchestra.
Melanie Kloetzel founded her company, kloetzel&co., in New York in 1997. The company has performed nationally for the past seven years at venues ranging from New York to Montana to California. A recipient of a 1997 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, a 1998 Movement Research Exchange Artist Award, a 1999 Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant, two 92nd Street Y Harkness Space Grant Awards, and a 2003 University of California Chancellor's Distinguished Fellowship Award, Ms. Kloetzel's work has been presented in New York by Movement Research's Monday Night series at the Judson Church, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Dancers Responding to AIDS, and The Flea Theater, among others. The company has also performed nationally at such venues as The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, Swarthmore College, the University of Montana, and the University of California, Riverside.
Named an "endearing... scamp" by Deborah Jowitt of The Village Voice, Ms. Kloetzel has also had her work described by Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times as "a rare occurrence in dance." The company has participated in multiple dance residencies, including one through The Swarthmore Project at Swarthmore College and a three-year residency through The Choreographer's Project in Philadelphia, PA. In addition to teaching in New York at Dance Space Inc. on the Guest Artist series, at Swarthmore College as an Associate in Performance, and as a faculty adjunct at the University of Montana, Ms. Kloetzel performed nationally from 1995-2000 with Lisa Race from David Dorfman Dance in Race Dance.
On Reflection
Ruth Barnes, M.F.A. student/choreographer
April 28-29, 2004
ARTS Performance Lab
On Reflection, a performance/installation of live and video dance by choreographer Ruth Barnes, MFA candidate in Dance at UC Riverside, with original music by Barbara A. Bennett, Department of Music faculty. The audience is invited to navigate the ARTS Building Performance Lab, reconfigured as a theatre-in-the-round, and experience the layerings and juxtapositions of this promenade performance. Spatial and temporal disruptions are created in this mixed-media event by differences and similarities in two-dimensional and three-dimensional images and spaces. With dancers Erica Yamada, Erik Guzmán, Megan Maxwell and Mindy Weethee, and musicians Barbara A. Bennett, synthesizer, and Robert L. Scarano, guitar.
Ruth Barnes was the first American choreographer to receive a Fulbright Fellowship to work in Great Britain, 1974-75. Her works have been commissioned by the Scottish Ballet Moveable Workshop, Dancework (London), MoMing (Chicago), Northern Dance Company (Leeds), the Ballet Junior (Geneva), the Bruckner Konservatorium (Linz) and the Conservatoire National de Région in Poitiers. She has been Artist-in-Residence at Florida State University, the University of Montana, and American University. In 2002, the University of Southern California Department of Slavic Languages and Literature commissioned The Mirror, Askew, for the inauguration of the Doheny Library exhibition The Miraculous Menagerie: The Cabaret in Moscow and Petersburg.
After six years touring as a solo artist and with a group in the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Asia, Barnes settled in Paris, France, in 1985. Her work has been produced by Dance Theater Workshop, on the London Dance Umbrella, at the Purcell Room and on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; in France, at the American Center, the Café de la Danse, Théâtre 18, Studio le Regard du Cygne (all in Paris), Espace Genton (Lyon), at le Guilvinec's Centre Culturel and at the Théâtre d'Ifs (Caen).
One of the principal teachers at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York, 1972-1985, Barnes is a guest teacher to companies throughout the world: the Groupe Emile Dubois (Grenoble); the companies of Philippe Decouflé, Mathilde Monnier and Angelin Prejlocaj (all in France); Second Stride and Extemporary Dance Theatre (London); Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (Taiwan); Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers (Canada); and at the following institutions: The American Center (Paris), the Hogeschool voor der Kunsten Arnhem (Holland), the University of Caen (France), the University Paris-V, the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon and the Bruckner Konservatorium (Linz, Austria). She was on the teaching staff of the Conservatoire National de Région in Poitiers from 1996 to 1999, and was appointed Director of the Dance Department in September 1997. From 1997 to 1999, she directed the modern dance pedagogy section of the CEFEDEM, a teacher training program in Poitiers. Barnes was choreographic Assistant to Régine Chopinot (Ballet Atlantique, Centre Chorégraphique National - La Rochelle) and Rehearsal Director for the Compagnie Philippe Saire in Lausanne. She was the first Sharon Disney Lund Visiting Guest Faculty of the School of Dance of the California Institute of the Arts, 2000-2002.
Call It What You Like
Joel Smith, M.F.A. student/choreographer
February 18-19, 2004
ARTS Performance Lab
Joel Smith presents two original performance pieces that critically engage and challenge present notions of experimental performance while disrupting current representations of gender and sexuality in dance. He dares to define what it means to be gay on stage in a heterosexual culture that is rapidly appropriating gay ideologies of the male body. He willingly objectifies himself, before his audience has a chance to, and exposes his near-naked body while speaking openly about needing to give pleasure to his audience. Smith is interested in provoking questions about the construction of performance that, in turn, comment on the construction of culture, gender, sexuality, race, and the politics that surround identity. He brings to light the relationship between audience and performer as a means to building a bridge, not a wall. Through experimental dance, video projection, and text by Pia Glenn, Smith and company offer a provocative evening of performance.
The first piece, Tactical Interference (2003), premiered at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica as part of 4x4, an emerging artist series produced by the Santa Monica Arts Council. This 35-minute piece explores the dialogue between audience and performer, exposing that relationship's vulnerability and construction. Looking specifically at the body and its gendered and racial identities, this piece reveals the ways in which we discipline, manipulate and package our bodies for the purposes of pleasing the audience. This performance critiques performance, and its construction is clearly outfitted for the audience's pleasure. Performed by Pia Glenn, Shakina Nayfack, Joel Smith and Richard Thomas, Tactical Interference promises to make you laugh and ponder, "What is performance"? This piece was created, in part, in collaboration with Pia Glenn and includes text by Pia Glenn.
The second piece, In 4 Parts (2004), is a series of solo studies that interrogate the gay male body in performance. At what point has the audience constructed a gay identity onto the performer? Asking this forces the audience to question their own need to objectify others in order to feel comfortable as spectators. Smith stages his head, illustrates his movement in a talking dance, attempts to decode his body of its gay tendencies, and peacefully reconciles himself to a piece of music. In 4 Parts is performed by Joel Smith and is momentarily interrupted by Pia Glenn and includes text by Pia Glenn.
Joel Smith is a choreographer and a visual artist pursuing a career in experimental performance and education. A graduate of UC Davis in 2000 with a BA in Studio Art, Smith trained with David Hollowell and Wayne Thiebaud for painting, as well as with Darrell Wynn for theatre design. At UC Davis, he designed over 12 shows; working in the various disciplines of lighting design, costume design, set design and publicity. His active involvement in the theatre department led him to explore performing as a dancer and creating as a choreographer.
Smith has danced with many artists including Marlies Yearby, Ray Tadio and Lea Anderson. He has received training in contemporary modern dance from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City \where he performed with Fred Benjamin, and at UC Santa Barbara where he performed with Doug Varone and Doug Elkins.
Smith has been dancing professionally in the commercial dance industry in Los Angeles with credits that include dancing for pop singers Ricky Martin and Thalia, as well as working on the television shows Six Feet Under, Providence, and The Hype. He was a member of the modern dance company Susan Rose and Dancers where he has performed in Boston at the Greenwich Studios as well as in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Alvear. Smith plans to fort a choreographic and experimental performance career in Los Angeles and hopes to enrich the artistic community with his unique style and youthful rough edges.
Private Edges
Laura Johnson, M.F.A. student/choreographer
December 3-5, 2003
Site of performance: 3120 Redwood Drive, Riverside
Laura Johnson explores site-specific choreography that allows the audience to experience dance intimately through a performance that takes place in an empty house in Downtown Riverside. Nine dancers perform individual pieces in each of the rooms, occasionally interacting with each other and the audience. The audience is able to move freely throughout the house choosing which part of the performance to experience.
Performers include: Nina Galin, Jennifer Jones, Kelli King, Melanie Kloetzel, Megan Maxwell, Young Jae Roh, Tracy Thompson, Isabel Valverde and Erica Yamada.
From Here
Shawn Womack, M.F.A student/choreographer
May 1-3, 2003
ARTS Performance Lab
From Here presents three new solos by choreographer and performer Shawn Womack. The dances merge Womack's interests in choreography, writing, and personal stories, with questions about memory, place and identity. From Here is a way of seeing a dance in relation to memory, to various histories, to place, to present circumstances, to shifting and shifty identities. It allows identity to burrow inside movement and text in order to wriggle, writhe, sneak or lunge forth into a prism of bodily images. From Here intentionally swirls in its references, rememberings, moves, tales, in its intended refusal of a linear progression.
I'm No Beauty personifies Riverside's beloved Mt. Rubidoux as a rough, tough woman who hurts from sitting as she is squeezed and clamped by pushy backyards. Her tenacious watching of the comings and goings on her asphalt road moves her to spark, burn, shake, shrivel and slide as she tells her tales. The solo is performed by Womack and layers choreographed movement, spoken narratives, video imagery, and recorded personal memories of the Riverside landmark. I'm No Beauty is a performed historiography that is both evocative and factually detailed as it pushes on the notion of the mountain as a space of contained wildness. Collaborators include Filipino filmmaker Fruto Corre and composer Ray McNamara, director of music for the UCR Department of Dance.
The second solo, The Tens, is performed by dancer and Riverside native Jennifer Twilley as a moving and sounding conversation with cellist Josh Aerie, the assistant principal cellist for the Inland Empire/Riverside County Philharmonic Orchestra. The dance and music material is culled and re-patterned from memories of danced and played experiences of the performers' past.
The final solo, Mom Troubles, is performed by Womack and splices fictionalized and "true" accounts of moms in trouble and troubled moms. Various mom stories - personal narratives and media-laden accounts - rub up against each other to pester sedimented notions of the white suburban mom. At times the dance appears as a docu-dance performing the stories of two notorious moms garnering recent media attention. Mom Troubles has been performed in San Diego and Connecticut and includes an original sound score by Florida-based composer Michael Uhrich.
Shawn Womack grew up in Riverside and returned to it in 2000 after living and working in Ohio for twenty years as a choreographer, performer and teacher of dance. In 1984, she founded Shawn Womack Dance Projects, a six-member touring contemporary dance and performance company based in Cincinnati. The company performed throughout the United States and in the former Soviet Union. Her choreography has been recognized with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, as well as a 1996 Ohio Governor's Award for the Arts in the category of performing artist.