Rice Dance Theatre's Spring 2007 Concert
Backward with Conviction
Backward with Conviction will premiere at Hamman Hall on Friday April 13th and Saturday April 14th at 8:00pm. For the program, go here. Here's the flyer for the show and a press release:
Rice Dance Theatre works to dispel myths about modern dance
“You think Modern Dance is weird movement without technique?” asks one recent Rice Dance Theatre flier. “Seriously? Modern Dance is precise athletic art,” the flier continues. Many people have negative misconceptions about Modern Dance. Recreation Center Dance Program staff and Rice Dance Theatre members are hoping to dispel such myths with a month-long audience education campaign and with this Spring’s concert, Backward with Conviction. Shows are Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14 at 8:00 p.m. Performances are in Hamman Hall, Rice University Entrance 21. Tickets are $5 for students and $7 for general. Reservations: 713-348-PLAY. Information: 713-348-5773 or online at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dancing/.
Becky Beaullieu Valls, Director of Rice Dance Theatre, has created a dance titled “The Sistahood” that focuses on the six Beaullieu sisters: Beth, Becky, Babette, Bonnie, Bitsy, and Barbara, who grew up in south Louisiana. Content for the choreography is based on family, sensory memories fused with actual events. The dance brings out issues surrounding birth order, sibling rivalry, and the intimacy and connection of sisterhood.
“Faces of Eve” by faculty choreographer and Associate Director Christine Lidvall is a series of short solos to music by Meredith Monk. Each of the solos represents a feminine quality or attitude. Audience members may also interpret the solos as symbolic of different stages of life.
Guest choreographer Jackie Nalett has tentatively titled her piece “Metro Fantasy.” It explores people going about their daily activities who secretly long for a more dramatic life. While waiting at a bus stop, conducting a business meeting or just watching television, individuals begin daydreaming about being dancers. This piece portrays three women's fantasies: that of a blues lounge dancer, a flashy broadway dancer, and a music video hip hop dancer.
Leslie Scates, a popular Improvisation Artist in Houston,has worked with an RDT cast on the skills of improvisation and together they have created a structured improvisation score. The score creates a framework for the dance with different sections but what movement the dancers do will change for each performance.
Becky Valls will be performing the dance "Equipoise" with guest performer Dr. Suzanne Oliver who directs the Dance Program at San Jacinto College. The duet is by a veteran Houston choreographer, Victoria Loftin, and explores the "give and take" in the intimate relationship between two women.
"Terra Nullius/New Lands" is Lovett senior Danielle Mouledoux's fourth choreographic attempt with RDT. This piece explores the tension between terror and exhilaration that arises with any risky venture, but especially one of physically venturing forth to unknown territories. There is a deliberately limited palette of movement ideas, to emphasize that the only shifting is in the individual's reaction to her environment. Danielle draws on her experiences of culture shock (and recommends you look up "Terra Nullius" for a quick Australian history lesson) and her imaginings of alien abductions and other nonsense.
Martel senior Emily Douglas’s piece, "Reconnaitre l'enfance, " is about weaving together adulthood and childhood, trying to find a balance with the two.
Brown senior Amy Richter explores what it is like to have one hand bigger than the other. In her dance, dancers come to terms with the difficulties of unsymmetrical hand sizes and learn to adapt.
Will Rice Junior Natalie Weber’s “Swandive” is an experiment in structure and spacing that explores emotional confinement and release. The dancing, like the live recording of the song, is raw and unpolished, with each dancer bringing her own emotions and style to the movement. Still, they move together, as one, dancing the same choreography from their own points of view and finding unity in their differences.
