The UNC Charlotte Department of Dance will present two back-to-back evenings of diverse performance showcasing faculty choreography on Friday, September 16, and Saturday, September 17. Both performances take place at 7:30 pm in the Anne R. Belk Theater in Robinson Hall.
The Faculty Dance Concert features guest and faculty dancers in works by professors E.E. Balcos, Rachel Barker, Kim Jones, and Tamara Williams. Also on the program are musical selections created and performed by Shamou, the new music director in the Department of Dance.
Guest artist Anthony Oliva, a former dancer with Pilobolus Dance Theater, will join Balcos and Shamou for Ancestral Tides: A Contact & Music Improvisation. New Assistant Professor of Dance Tamara Williams will perform “Of the Past,” a section of her larger work, Morning Honeysuckle, Sunday’s Greed, which addresses the history and legacy of injustice towards African Americans.
Kaddish revisited, choreographed by Kim Jones, is a response to contemporary events, inspired by Anna Sokolow’s 1945 Kaddish, a work modeled on the Jewish prayer of mourning. The solo work is performed to Maurice Ravel’s “Kaddish” from Deux mélodies hébraïque, arranged for violin and piano and performed live by guest artists Ludovica Tassani and Andrea Giovanni Lucchi.
The trio performing Rachel Barker’s Welcome... into our minds, thoughts, worlds includes UNC Charlotte dance alumni Audrey Baran and Caitlyn Swet, with PLEXUS|dance founder Juliana Tilbury-Carson. The piece emerges from a process focusing on awareness in improvisation and performance and is part of a research project funded by a Faculty Research Grant.
Tickets are $18; $12 for UNC Charlotte faculty, staff, and alumni; $10 for seniors; and $8 for all students. They can be purchased by phone at 704-687-1849, online, or at the Robinson Hall Box Office.