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10.02.08

Contacts: Arts at Emory, Jessica Moore, jkmoore@emory.edu, 404-727-1687
Sally Radell, Emory Dance Program, sradell@emory.edu, 404-727-2835

Release written by Sally Radell

Emory Dance Company Fall Concert Showcases Guest Artists

The Emory Dance Company presents its fall concert featuring an eclectic mix of dances with themes related to confinement, the search for truth and social responsibility from Nov. 20-22, 2008 at 8 p.m. with an additional 2 p.m. matinee on Nov. 22 in the Schwartz Center Dance Studio, 1700 North Decatur Road. The concert includes works choreographed by guest artists Blake Beckham, Susan Eldridge, Nicole Livieratos, Elizabeth Streb, Jennifer Wood and faculty member George Staib. For tickets ($10 general public; $6 Emory faculty, staff, students and discount category groups), information, a listing of discount categories and directions, visit www.arts.emory.edu or call the Arts at Emory box office at 404-727-5050. A reception follows the Nov. 22 concert and proceeds from that performance benefit the Emory Friends of Dance Scholarship Fund.

Blake Beckham is a proud alumna of the Emory Dance Program and is currently active as an arts administrator, teacher, choreographer, performer and presenter of arts events in Atlanta. In her choreographic works Blake strives to reveal the sincere and striving body. “The purpose is not to make beauty,” she says, “but to engage in the process of knowing more truths.” Beckham is setting a quartet on the Emory Dance Company, using the haunting romantic melody of a Schubert string quartet. Her dancers thrust through space with movements both raw and nuanced. They grip hands, negotiating a shared space in which they tug, tumble, caress and careen.

Atlanta choreographer Susan Eldridge has created a new work for eight dancers entitled “Standing Erect.” This dance is a thoughtful look at the responsibility we have to focus on the difficulties and concerns of our fellow human beings and the effect it has on our evolution. Eldridge has a rich background in collaborative endeavors and has worked with numerous composers, conceptual artists, theater directors and dancers.

Nicole Livieratos is founder and director of the Atlanta based Gardenhouse Dance group which has received numerous grants and awards from Georgia based arts agencies and beyond. Ms. Livieratos has created a new work for 11 dancers titled “It’s a bit like being Alice…” The dance utilizes elements of dance, performance and video with the performers often using individual iPods to serve as their own soundtrack.

Two of our guest choreographers hail from cities outside of Atlanta. Jennifer Wood is the Artistic Director of Suchu Dance, based in Houston, Texas. Long celebrated for her wit and relentless physicality, she brings her keen eye and unique choreographic styling to the Emory dance community. Her new work involves 14 dancers and a musical score she composed herself. Her fast-paced piece is steeped in theme and variation and is meticulously danced.

Our second non-Atlanta guest choreographer is the renowned New York choreographer Elizabeth Streb. In 1997 Elizabeth Streb received a John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award. She calls her choreography “popaction” as it intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics and extreme-sports into a bristling muscle and motion vocabulary. As part of her honors performance thesis, college senior Caitlin Yuhas performs “Little Ease” which is one of Streb’s signature works. Based on an ancient torture device, the piece takes place inside an open, coffin-sized box – a space too small, supposedly, to allow the body any “ease.” Streb’s aggressive choreography challenges the restrictions of the space, sending Yuhas into a series of writhing, tumbling movements inside the box.

Emory faculty choreographer George Staib is presenting a dance for 10 dancers set to choral music by Prokofiev, Rachmaninof and Carl Orff. Through this work, Staib’s intention is to meld the classical with the contemporary and the traditional with the progressive. This contemporary ballet, in five short sections, is based upon juxtaposing sharp, angular movement with late 19 th and early 20 th century choral music. The dance investigates the emotional power of the music and seeks to unite the selections through a choreographic process that develops each new section out of identical beginnings.

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EMORY DANCE PROGRAM

The mission of the Emory Dance Program is to provide a curriculum that interweaves both the practical and theoretical to foster students' creative, intellectual, and communicative powers in the field of dance. We seek to develop skilled and uniquely expressive individuals who move and act with intelligence and sensitivity, think independently, and value original thought and diversity.

ARTS AT EMORY

Emory University provides a dynamic, multi-disciplinary environment for the study, creation, and presentation of the arts.

EDITORS NOTE: Photographs available upon request.

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