Dance Department to present Winter Concert Dec. 6, 7

“Atmospheric Conditions,” the Winter Dance Concert featuring choreography by faculty and guest artists, is scheduled Friday and Saturday, Dec. 6 and 7, in the Skidmore Dance Theater.

There will be performances at 8 p.m. each day and a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students and senior citizens. Tickets are sold 45 minutes prior to each show; no reservations will be taken. Those wishing to attend should arrive early for best seats.

Works by Skidmore faculty and guest artist Dušan Týnek will be performed.

Known internationally for his striking blend of theatricality, musicality, and humanism in formally structured modern dance, Týnek has been called “an undoubted talent” by The New York Times. The Czech-born choreographer has studied and performed with several modern dance pioneers, owing much of his training and inspiration to Lucinda Childs as well as Merce Cunningham, who personally tutored him while Týnek served as an understudy for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Týnek also performed and toured with Dance Works Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Since founding his own company in 2003, Týnek has created over 20 major dances, choreographed an opera, and held seven critically acclaimed seasons in major dance venues in New York City. Týnek has received commissioning grants from the NEA and from the Harkness, Greenwall, and O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance foundations and is the recent recipient of a prestigious Bogliasco Fellowship.

The program features his Transparent Walls, which had its premier Nov. 15, 2008.  Setto the orchestral work (10 winds, percussion, celesta and cello) of the same name by acclaimed contemporary Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, Transparent Walls examines organized chaos – where individuals break free from life’s tumultuous machinery to find moments of connectedness and humanity.

The dance’s New York City premiere in 2010 was met with great critical acclaim, and Transparent Walls went on to tour the U.S. from California to Florida. This inspired Týnek and Vrebalov to continue their collaboration. Transparent Walls eventually became the first section of Trilogy – three dances set to Vrebalov’s original compositions. Trilogy premiered during a tour of Serbia this year and will have its U.S. premiere in 2014.

Other program highlights include Corona, developed collaboratively by Debra Fernandez, professor and chair of the Dance Department, and artist Shana Parke Harrison. The title refers to “a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body, especially in the sun or moon.”

Rubén Graciani, associate professor of dance, has developed Shelter, a choreographic investigation of home. He calls it “an exploration of both the people with whom we find a place and the place itself, which we call home. I have lived on an island of some sort (Puerto Rico, the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Manhattan) for most of my life. When I saw the work of Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson (at the Tang Museum) I was touched by how immediately it connected me to my sense of being at home, being on an island, and being with a partner — a shelter from the storm.”

Untitled, another program highlight, was choreographed by Mary Harney, artist-in-residence. She describes the piece as “a lively and energetic trip down memory lane into the 1940s, as the dancers swirl, twirl, jitterbug and swing. Club dancing of the ’40s integrated with contemporary movement sets the stage for some finger-snapping fun.”

Denise Warner Limoli, associate professor of dance, has restaged the Holberg Suite to music by Edvard Grieg (“The Holberg Suite,” Op. 40, 1884). She said, “I first choreographed Holberg Suite for the ballet major at the University of Cincinnati College/Conservatory of Music. Grieg’s music has five movements but we are performing only four of them. Each movement has a particular personality and challenges the dancers to embody a range of styles in their dancing.”