Professional companies from New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
will perform recently choreographed work by Princeton University's dance faculty in concerts at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 8-9.
"New
Dances: Princeton Faculty in Concert" will be the first faculty dance
concert at the Berlind Theatre, which is part of the McCarter Theatre
Center and opened in 2003.
It will feature works by Head of Dance Ze'eva Cohen and faculty members Meghan Durham, Dyane Harvey, Rebecca Lazier and Edisa Weeks.
The five eclectic dances featured draw on personal stories, images and
music to convey powerful statements about the human condition.
Cohen's
"Meditation on a Square," to be performed by Pittsburgh-based
Bodiography Contemporary Ballet, was inspired by sacred architecture,
music and folk dances from her recent trip to Barcelona, Spain.
Durham's company, Philadelphia-based Merge, will perform "Fragment of
(Me)mory." Choreographed to music by Alexander Borodin, the dance draws
a metaphor for memory as a physical event by juxtaposing precise
physicality with alternative light sources to illuminate and obscure
the dancers.
Harvey integrates text and music in her danced
portrayal of Sechita's dreams from Ntozake Shange's "For Colored Girls
Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf," representing a
woman's journey to self-acceptance.
Lazier’s Brooklyn-based Terrain
will perform the premiere of "Serenade." Choreographed to Pyotr
Tchaikovsky's score of the same name, the dance is the story of being
attracted to and repelled by the romantic music and finds five dancers
soaring, crashing and embracing stillness as the dance unfolds.
Weeks
will perform "She Loves Me" with her New York company Delirious. The
work, set to love songs by Patsy Cline and Martha Reeves and the
Vandellas, is a dark comedy that, in the tradition of "Medea" and
"Beloved," seeks to understand the painful psychology of infanticide.
Tickets
are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors, and are
available through the McCarter box office at (609) 258-2787 or www.mccarter.org.
