UNCSA to present Summer Dance Performance
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts will present its Summer Dance Performance at 2:30 p.m. Friday, July 21, at UNCSA’s Stevens Center, 405 West Fourth St.
The performance will feature four world premieres, created by four emerging choreographers – including two School of Dance alumni – who are the inaugural participants in the first Choreographic Institute Development Residency at UNCSA.
The performance will also include pieces created and/or staged by Summer Dance faculty.
The 2:30 p.m. July 21 performance is open to the public and tickets are $12 (general seating, not reserved). Purchase tickets online or call the Box Office at 336-721-1945. This summer, the Box Office is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
These four were selected because they exhibit a strong choreographic voice and exceptional promise.
Catherine Miller, Director of UNCSA Summer Dance
“The four choreographers selected to participate in the residency have created original works on Classical Ballet Intensive and Contemporary Dance Intensive students currently attending Summer Dance,” said Catherine Miller, Director of UNCSA Summer Dance. “These four were selected because they exhibit a strong choreographic voice and exceptional promise.”
The alumni choreographers are Kyle Davis, a 2008 high school graduate and a soloist with Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Mari Meade, a 2006 high school graduate and 2009 B.F.A. recipient who is founder and artistic director of Mari Meade Dance Collective in Brooklyn. The other choreographers are Charlotte Griffin, a native of Durham who studied at Juilliard and is assistant professor of dance at the University of California at Irvine, and Marielis Garcia, who studied with Alvin Ailey and Twyla Tharp and leads her own dance production company in New York.
For the past five weeks, the four choreographers have been in residence at UNCSA Summer Dance, taking daily technique classes and attending workshops and lectures by Summer Dance faculty and guests in the mornings, followed by afternoon rehearsals with dancers from the Summer Dance program.
All of the choreographers have been individually mentored by UNCSA Visiting Distinguished Artist Helen Pickett, who is Atlanta Ballet’s resident choreographer. In addition, the choreographers took a two-week “music composition for choreographers” course offered by School of Music faculty member Michael Rothkopf.
The 2:30 p.m. July 21 performance is the culmination of that residency.
The Development Residency is part of a two-track Choreographic Institute at UNCSA. The other track is a Professional Residency that saw School of Dance Dean Susan Jaffe and former Dean Ethan Stiefel, both former principal dancers with American Ballet Theatre, working with invited professional dancers in June to research choreographic ideas.
July 12, 2017