Bryn Mawr Dance welcomes new artists to its faculty: Karen Brown, former principle ballerina with Dance Theatre of Harlem and Artistic Director of the Oakland Ballet will be teaching first half semester of Ballet III; Connie Majka who has been teaching and performing Hula and Tahitian for thirty years will join Ramaa Ramesh in teaching The Gesture of Dance: Intro to Classical Indian/Hula; and Olive Prince, noted Philadelphia-based dancer and choreographer will be setting a work on Modern Ensemble. Returning artists include Meredith Rainey, formerly a dancer with Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet X, Artistic Director of Carbon Dance, and independent choreographer who will make a work for Ballet Ensemble, Shannon Murphy in a new role as instructor for Modern II, as well as Melissa Chisena, Chandra Moss-Thorne,Linda Mintzer, Katherine Kiefer-Stark, Shannon Murphy, Becky Malcolm-Naib, Yasmin Goodman, Melanie Cotton, and Rev. Nia Eubanks-Dixon. David Brick will be teaching Dance Composition I and Dr. Laura Vriend will be teaching Anthropology of Dance. Click to check out faculty bios and the Fall schedule.

Students will show their final creative projects in Pem Studio this week.

Advanced Choreography:
Amancay Candal Tribe and Hilary Pierce
Monday, 2 PM

Dance Composition II
Maddie Brady,  Sarah Cunningham, Kristin Kury, Nana Zorokong
Tuesday, 3 PM

Friday and Saturday
April 25th and 26th     7:30 PM
Bryn Mawr College     Goodhart Hall

Free Admission    Reception Follows
Information: 610-526-5210 or adowdy@brynmawr.edu

Bryn Mawr and Haverford students dance in works ranging from ballet to African, from modern to Hip-hop, created by noted Philadelphia choreographers Myra Bazell, Melanie Cotton, Nia Eubanks Dixon, Meg Foley, and Nora Gibson and student choreographer Sofia Ranalli. This year’s concert will also feature our students performing the landmark 1935 Martha Graham work, Steps in the Street, directed by  former Graham dancer and licensed reconstructor, Jennifer Conley.

Photo: Larry Dixon; Heading: Hilary Pierce

If you are interested in exploring the possibility of a dance minor (6 credits) or dance major (11 credits) or in just finding out more about the program, join us for conversation sometime on Friday April 4th between 4-5 PM.  We’ll have cookies and tea as well. If  you can’t come or need information before then, please feel free to contact me at lcarusoh@brynmawr.edu or our associate director, Madeline Cantor at mcantor@brynmawr.edu.

Linda Caruso Haviland.

Check out this blog on the process of rehearsing Martha Graham’s early work, Steps in the Street. Working with former Graham dancer, Jennifer Conley, BMC and HC dancers are learning this section of Graham’s 1936 work, Chronicle, a commentary of the devastation and isolation that war creates. Students were introduced first to the Graham technique during five weeks of classes with former Graham soloist, Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch, and then met with Conley over three intensive weekends to re-build the work.  It will be performed as part of the Spring Dance Concert on April 25th and 26th.

Annie Turkel authors the blog accessed at http://mawrsteps.blogs.brynmawr.edu/

Friday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m. McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall
FREE to tri-co students, faculty and staff.  Pick up tickets in the Arts Office, remaining tickets will be at the box office.
For more info or outside ticket info go here http://www.brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html and click on Liz Gerring Dance.

Liz Gerring Dance Company’s glacier, which the New York Times described as  “an enthralling and important new dance work,” is a full-length choreographic work for eight dancers based on Michael J. Schumacher’s 2007-2012 musical composition of the same name. In glacier, Gerring joyfully recalls the prairie land of her ancestors, where space is endless, mysterious and radiant with possibility, inviting the imagination of the audience. Though still defined by meticulous athleticism and rigor resonant with emotional and sensual theatricality, Gerring’s choreography in glacier is more complex and incorporates light instead of visual art or film to illuminate her ideas.

The master class will be taught by long-time company member,  Adele Nickel (forward woman in middle image above), and is designed for advanced intermediate and advanced dancers.  4:00-5:30 PEM STUDIO, BMC campus.

[photos by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times and others]

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Student choregraphers Dana Nichols, Sofia Ranalli, and Alex Kirsch present original work on Bryn Mawr and Haverford Students. Saturday and Sunday, March 1st and 2nd, 7:30 PM in PEM Studio, Bryn Mawr campus. Free. Refreshments follow.

SATURDAY, February 8 at 8 PM    PEM STUDIO, Bryn Mawr College
FREE ADMISSION   Refreshments follow

This year, our Dance Faculty Concert, produced by Associate Director Madeline Cantor, features the work of four of our faculty artists:
Nora Gibson, trained in both ballet and  post-modern dance will be presenting a quartet that emerged from Gibson’s interest in formal elements, particularly those with fugue-like structures.  Kyle Clark and Dinita Askew will perform a work that demonstrates their on-going investigations into expanding and deepening the art of Hip-hop.  Corinne Karon and Rochelle Haynes draw on the work of tap greats Honi Coles, LaVaughn Robinson and Pete Nugent to create a dynamic duet.  Meg Foley, one of the region’s more noted dance artists and improvisers will bring her skills to the performance as well.  Join us and stay afterwards for light refreshments or to talk with the artists.  The Concert runs under an hour in length.

 Art work: Virginia Clark, Poster: Camilla Dely

We are delighted to welcome two new Dance faculty and one who returns in a new capacity:  Carrie Ellmore-Talitsch was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company for ten years where she performed leading roles in Graham’s classic works including Jocasta in Night Journey and the Pioneering Woman in Appalachian Spring.  She has also collaborate with other prominent choreographers and artists in New York.  She will be teaching our advanced modern class.  Melanie Cotton returns to set a Hip-hop work on our students.  More recently she has been performing and teaching internationally with Rennie Harris Puremovement and was featured in In the Heights at the Walnut Street Theatre.  Melissa Chisena began her dance career in ballet, dancing and touring nationally with North Carolina Dance Theatre, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and The Richmond Ballet, directed by Stoner Winslett.  Since relocating to the Philadelphia area she has worked with several regional choreographers and is the Artistic Director of Chisena Danza.

Graham Company dancing Steps in the Street

This Spring, our Modern Ensemble students will be learning a landmark 1935 Martha Graham work, Steps in the Street.  Working from the 1920s through to her death in 1991, Graham was, of course, perhaps the most famous US developer and exponent of Modern Dance.  Steps in the Street was part of her larger work, Chronicle which, like Picasso’s Guernica, was a response to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. This section which is sub-titled,  ”Devastation – Homelessness -Exile,” was intended as “a stark, explosive response to the devastation and isolation that war leaves in its wake.” The reconstruction will be directed by Jennifer Conley, a licensed reconstructor/ regisseur for the Company. Conley is a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and Pearl Lang Dance Theatre.  As a soloist, she has performed the work of modern dance luminaries Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Jane Dudley, Ethel Winter, Yuriko, and Stuart Hodes, has set Graham work both here and abroad, and directs her own choreography as well. In conjunction with this project, Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch will be teaching Graham technique in our advanced modern course.  Ms. Ellmore-Tallitsch was a soloist with the Graham Company and danced Graham’s roles in several of her most noted works including Night Journey and Appalachian Spring. She continues to work with choreographers and other artists.

The work will be performed in the Spring Dance Concert, Friday and Saturday, April 25th and 26th, 7:30 PM in Goodhart on the Bryn Mawr College campus. Free admission.