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MFA
Dance Concert: Celebrating 35 Years of Excellence
The Smith College Dance Department
will host a special concert November 18-20, at 8 p.m. each
night in Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center, in honor of the 35th
anniversary of the MFA in Dance at Smith. Tickets are $9
for adults, $5 for students/seniors; , by ,
or by phone: 413-585-ARTS (2787).
 Nine returning alumni will
choreograph or perform in dances presented in the concert.
Pieces will include:
Emerging
Adventures of a Sensual Etymologist, presented by Peter
Schmitz ’86,
currently on the dance faculty of Middlebury College, in
collaboration with Jennifer Kayle ’99, an assistant professor
of dance at the University of Iowa.
In Moving
On, Redux, Virginia Scholl ’79, assistant professor of dance
at Landmark College, and Rebecca Nordstrom ’79, professor
of dance at Hampshire College, have created a playful duet
based on movement and material ideas first explored while
they were at Smith.
Cathy Nicoli ’04 is a two-time
recipient of both the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts’ Choreography
Award and the Rhode Island Foundation’s
Joseph Cirino Scholarship for Arts Education. She describes
her piece, Sight
Point, as at first “a bit tongue-in-cheek and bordering
sometimes on the lines of literal sarcasm—or is it just being
earnest?” and
then “fluid, circular, continuous,
abstracted systematic chaos.”
Brenda
Divelbliss ’99, an artistic
associate at Harvard University, presents Misplaced, set
to music by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson; she says
the dance was inspired by the score’s mystery, melancholy,
and sense of struggle.
Sarah Seely ’01 runs
a New York-based theater company, From the desk of Sarah
Seely. Her piece, Which
brings me to you… was choreographed “during an artist residency
at Kirkland Farms, Penn., after several long nights and many
bottles of red wine.” This solo
combines Seely’s comedic flare, love of all things vintage,
and her gift for telling a good story.
Thomas
Vacanti ’04 and Maryanne
DeLisle Kodzis ’96, artistic
co-directors of the Pioneer Valley Ballet Company & School,
have choreographed an excerpt from Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird
Suite, which Vacanti describes as “a
story of bones, eggs, and infernal creatures.” Vacanti is
also on the dance faculties of UMass/Amherst and Amherst
College. Kodzis has taught at the University of Massachusetts,
Smith College and Dean College. This piece will also be performed
at dance concerts at Mt. Holyoke and UMass. |
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