Ted Mills, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
Theatre UCSB’s spring dance concert features the work of faculty choreographers and cream-of-the-crop seniors in its six parts. At left is a scene from “Bone Whispers,” choreographed by Tonia Shimin. PHOTO COURTESY OF THEATRE UCSB
April 13, 2007 9:37 AM
Looking at the title of Theatre UCSB’s spring dance concert, “From the Backbone Forward” — opening tonight at UCSB — one might wonder where the phrase comes from. It’s not from a choreographer’s advice or a movement technique, oh no.
“I thought that was a good way to describe all these pieces,” artistic director Stephanie Nugent says. “In one way, we’re all moving forward (artistically). But it’s also a way of talking about the movement of a dancer through space.”
Themes of birth, development, and heritage flow through the six pieces comprising “Backbone.”
In “Relative Memory,” advanced student Chelsea Retzloff’s musings about her grandparents, history, and DNA influence her choreography.
“Both my grandmothers died when I was young,” says Retzloff, who is one of two UCSB seniors represented in the show. “I get inspired that they’re a part of me. Though I never knew them, they still guide me.”
In the work, six female dancers solo, with each solo based on the one before it.
“It changes when it gets to the new person,” Retzloff says. “It’s similar, but different.”
In this sense, she says, it reflects how families pass on physical and emotional traits.
In “Inc.,” Retzloff’s classmate Victor Fung explores his life away from dance, with influences from his friends’ lives in the world of big business. Set to clarinet and vocal music by Michael Lowenstern, “Inc.” presents the external and internal worlds of the businessman in a cutthroat world.
While Fung’s dichotomy exists within the individual, Tonia Shimin’s lies between the new world and an older, archetypal one. Her “Bone Whispers” incorporates video projection and a score by Steve Reich and faculty member Leslie Hogan.
“At Last It’s Clear” comes from artist-in-residence Keith Johnson of Cal State Long Beach, and utilizes the full UCSB dance company. Non-narrative and conceptual, Nugent, the artistic director, says Johnson’s work is momentum-driven and kinesthetic.
“At the end,” she says, “I feel like (the title) is like a false statement. It’ll never be clear . . . but the middle section is a moment of great clarity.”
Johnson’s work uses music from Arizona-based composer Kris Hill, who has worked with the choreographer in the past.
Nancy Colahan’s “Inflorescence” came to her through a love of gardening, which influences the vibrant costumes, as well as the idea of creative and artistic flowering.
Lastly, Nugent’s “Stop Searching — Your Mouth Is Full of Feathers,” is based on a song by Iva Bittova, whose violin and vocals provide the music. Nugent says the song’s “neither here nor there, neither wet nor dry” lyrical device caused her to think about culture and our need to search for answers.
“We’re all looking outside, searching for something,” she says. “The whole time it’s inside of us. We’ve eaten it.”
Nugent presented the work before at UCSB, in 2001.
“I wanted to do it again,” she says. “The dancers all have a very different sense of character. It’s my second shot, a chance to do it stronger.”
FROM THE BACKBONE FORWARD
When: 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday,2 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $17 general, $13 students and seniors
Information: 893-3535 or www.dramadance.ucsb.edu