The UW–Madison Dance Department, housed in the School of Education, presents its Faculty Concert 2023 Feb. 9 – 18, featuring work from Kate Corby, Li Chiao-Ping, Collette Stewart, Chris Walker, Jin-Wen Yu, and guest artist Charles O. Anderson.
The concert will take place over two weekends — Feb. 9-11 and 16-18 — in the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall (1050 University Avenue).
Anderson, a professor and chair of Ohio State University’s Department of Dance and the artistic director of dance theatre X, will present “Manifesting Destiny,” an ensemble work about conjuring and imagining equity, justice, and freedom by and for those historically and systemically denied those rights. In this performance at UW–Madison, the work will focus on the historic and systemic denial of women’s equity, justice, and freedom.
Anderson, who describes his work as “dance-theatre,” says he considers himself a “kinetic storyteller” instead of a choreographer. “I don’t work in purely abstracted forms,” he says. “I am very much interested in engaging around issues and topics that are salient to us in the current moment.”
Anderson was in residence at UW–Madison for two weeks from Jan. 23 to Feb. 6, during which he taught several master classes in the Dance Department in addition to creating “Manifesting Destiny” with 13 student dancers who were chosen through an audition process.
“I wanted to expand my vocabulary and work with somebody new that would really challenge me as a performer and artist,” says dancer Olivia Heintz, on why she decided to audition. Heintz is a fourth-year student and dance major at UW–Madison.
The students rehearsed the piece seven days a week for roughly three hours a day throughout Anderson’s residency. “It’s been intense,” says Abbi Stickels, a fourth-year dance and political science major. Stickels adds: “The work itself is physically demanding, but also emotionally demanding, and so there’s been a lot of groundwork happening and work behind the scenes investigating what it means to put on a piece like this.”
“We’re looking at women’s rights and the power of this female group, coming together to address some of the issues around women’s rights in the world currently,” explains Cleo Decker, a second-year dance and psychology major.
The concert will also include several works choreographed by UW–Madison faculty:
Professor Chris Walker will present four sections of choreography including “Troubled Water” and new work developed in response to “Sifting and Reckoning,” UW–Madison’s “exhibition on its own histories of discrimination and exclusion and the resistance movements that were started to oppose them.” Walker’s work will feature poetry by Azura Tyabji.
Professor Li Chiao-Ping will present a new work, “With/In,” for six dancers. This work takes us into another time, and features cycles emerging and dissolving.
Professor Kate Corby will present a new piece made collaboratively with three student performers exploring memory, relationship, and our experience of time, with an original score by Ryan Ross Smith.
Professor Jin-Wen Yu will present an excerpt of “Digging,” a playful quintet that explores what we think we know and what is unknown to us.
Collette Stewart, a teaching faculty member in the Dance Department, will present “Foreground Noise,” a philosophical romp combining original text and movement that explores the noisy state of our minds.
Tickets ($24 general public, $18 students and seniors) are available online, by phone at 608-265-2787, or in person at the Campus Arts Box Office (800 Langdon Street). Tickets will also be available for purchase at the door one hour before the performances.
The performance on Saturday, Feb. 11, at 2:30 p.m. will also be livestreamed. Tickets to view the livestream are $24 for all audiences.
Learn more at dance.wisc.edu.