Fall Dance Concert 2019 OUT OF MANY

Event Date:

Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 8:00pm to Friday, December 6, 2019 - 8:00pm

Saturday, December 7, 2019 - 1:00pm

Saturday, December 7, 2019 - 7:00pm

Event Date Details:

DEC 5 - 6, 2019 / 8 PM

DEC 7, 2019 / 1 PM

DEC 7, 2019 / 7 PM

PLEASE NOTE DIFFERENT CURTAIN TIMES

NO LATE SEATING

Event Location:

Hatlen Theater

Event Price:

PRE-SALE

$13 - UCSB Faculty, Staff, Alumni & Students, Seniors, Children

$17 - General Audience

DAY OF

$15 - UCSB Faculty, Staff, Alumni & Students, Seniors, Children

$19 - General Audience

Buy Tickets

For more info on tickets and seating, click here.

Concert
C oncert Director
Atlas Reflection
Hinder
Invite You to Surrender
95 North
in: somnia
In the Reality of Degas
Program
Press
Gallery

concert director Christina McCarthy

photo by Stephen Sherrill

About the Concert

UCSB Theater and Dance presents their annual Fall Dance concert entitled Out of Many, presenting new choreography by five BFA Senior Dance majors in collaboration with three Theater Design Concentration students. UCSB Dance Company will round out the program with a restating of 95 North by faculty member Brandon Whited. The concert is under the direction of Christina McCarthy in collaboration with Ann Bruice. Each choreographer is investigating how the individual relates to and integrates with society and community; how each of us strive to be part of the world while remaining true to ourselves.These student artists are navigating new and exciting questions about inclusivity, self-definition and communal responsibility.

About the Concert Director

Christina McCarthy is Vice Chair of Theater and Dance and Director of Dance at UC Santa Barbara. She teaches all levels of modern technique, mentors BFA students in their final thesis projects and choreographs for both Dance Program Productions and Theater Productions within the department. Ms. McCarthy has choreographed for local high school and professional theater companies over the last fifteen years. After preforming with Nina Wiener Dance Company in New York she was both a dancer and Assistant Artistic Director of Santa Barbara Dance Theater. Ms. McCarthy is a multi-disciplinary artist whose sculptural works includes puppet creation and ceramics, and her movement training includes aerial arts and clowning. Recently her puppet creations were seen in the Out of the Box Theater Company’s production of Amelie.

Atlas Reflection by Wes Dameron

Wes Dameron’s, Atlas Reflection explores the aesthetic juxtapositions in the perceived corporeal forms of statues. Investigating our instinctive response to identify and admire the perfection of the marble before recognizing the struggles of the human forms which are captured in static positions of pain and torture, Mr. Dameron finds a non-linear and durational aesthetic as he alternates between the human-ness of the individual dancers on stage and the objects of artistic beauty they are embodying in their controlled and stylized movements. In particular, Mr. Dameron was drawn to the contrast between the smooth, refined exterior of marble and the agonizing, contortions of pain within the body as seen in Greek and Roman statues.

Hinder by Lexi Cipriano

Lexi Cipriano, choreographer of Hinder, is interested in the individual facing obstacles and how our perceptions of what is happening leads us to decision making that informs and creates the path of our lives. Juxtaposing a soloist against a chorus of unspecified, but clearly intense and unavoidable entities, Ms. Cipriano explores the energy of spatial dynamics and pathways on stage to offer a poetic and abstract physical interpretation of stress, questioning, assumption, fear and frustration for the soloist in a sea of shifting pressures. Taking the quote from Niklas Luhmann, “Decisions are inherently paradoxical, exhibiting and negating at once their contingent nature, i.e. that other decisions could have been chosen.”, Lexi is also focusing on dissecting questions of fate and self-determination.

Invite You to Surrender by Morgan Geraghty

Invite You to Surrender, choreographed by Morgan Geraghty, invites the audience and the dancers to give in to the music and the chaos therein. This piece dives into a dichotomous world, as the soloist finds herself stuck between aspiration for perfection and acceptance of the craziness of life. Ms. Geraghty’s work emerges from adherence to and breakage from driving, beat-heavy music, fusing contemporary and modern dance techniques to communicate the value of release and surrender.

95 North by Brandon Whited

Opening the second half of the program, UCSB Dance Company performs Assistant Professor Brandon Whited’s 95 North—originally developed through a commission for Santa Barbara Dance Theater in May 2019. 95 North examines the call of the north, wanderlust for opportunity and growth, and the youthful audacity to dream of a life beyond one’s current circumstances. Utilizing group form and featured roles from within the ensemble, 95 North reflects the myriad paths we might take in life, and the varied perspectives we hold. Through deconstruction and development of movement phrases in collaboration with the dancers, narrative is abstracted and distilled; offering themes of aspiration and ambition, a search for solitude and the desire for companionship along the way. The work draws from Prof. Whited’s personal history of growth, travel and the process of becoming through self-citation and the aesthetics, physicalities and experiences that shaped his relationship to dance.

in: somnia by Whitney Ross

Whitney Ross, delves into a fantastical, surreal experience for audience and dancers as a way of investigating obsession and infatuation in her new work, in: somnia. Through a progression from focused unity and calm abandon devolving into chaos and conflicting individual experiences, the movement explores the isolating effect of getting lost in one’s daydreams. Ms. Ross is focusing in the individual by using a blend of set choreographed dance phrases and tightly controlled improvisation from her dancers to further personalize not only the experience of the soloist caught in her own day dream, but to also underscoring the individuality in each of the performers that comprise the day dream itself that swirls around the soloist. With an interesting shift of perspective that uses the forestage area, Ms. Ross blurs the line between the audience and the dancers.

In the Reality of Degas by Gina Schemenauer

Closing the program is Gina Schemenauer’s, In the Reality of Degas. This piece brings to life impressionist painter Edgar Degas’ artwork of ballet dancers. Choreographed by Gina Schemenauer, this ballet pointe piece begins within the realm of classical ballet centering on Degas’ famous The Dancing Class painting. It then transforms into a darker, more contemporary ballet movement, expressing the unseen struggle of ballet. The piece continues to reveal the art of the dancers’ struggle to maintain the grace and artistry of ballet with the elevating physical and emotional demands on dancers trying to achieve their artistry through accomplishing perfection. Told through the lens of the individual contemplating their role in the artform of ballet, this piece falls in line with the broader concepts of fitting in culturally and what it takes to thrive and survive.

Program

Press

In their respective pieces, each choreographer and student costume designer is investigating how the individual relates to and integrates with society and the community, and how each of us strives to be part of the world while remaining true to ourselves. - The Current preview article

Each summer the senior dance majors start thinking about what is in the forefront of their mind and how the ideas that are brewing will come to life as dance art in the Fall Dance Concert. It is not surprising that these choreographers are asking about how the individual is defined and how they fit into our larger world. We are all in a place of uncertainty as we navigate new and exciting questions about inclusivity, self-definition and communal responsibility. - The BrowadwayWorld preview article