Shared Grad - UMD School of Theatre Dance and Performance

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MARCH 2 – 13, 2011
UMD Repertoire Orchestra
Two Men Talking
Paul Browde and Murray Nossel
Music in Mind
American Voices
Reflections from the Keyboard
Mayron Tsong, piano
Spring Big Band Showcase, Part I
Spring Big Band Showcase, Part II
The Left Bank Quartet
Shared Graduate Dance Concert
Misha Dichter and Harlem Quartet
Sachal Vasandani Quartet
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SCHOOL OF
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THEATRE DANCE
PERFORMANCE STUDIES
UMD SCHOOL OF THEATRE, DANCE, AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES
Daniel MacLean Wagner, Producing Director
SHARED GRADUATE
DANCE CONCERT
Paul D. Jackson, Director
thursday, march 10, 2011 . 8PM
friday, march 11, 2011 . 8PM
dance theatre
PHOTO BY ZACHARY Z. HANDLER
CLARICE SMITH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
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PROGRAM
SHARED GRADUATE DANCE CONCERT
Paul D. Jackson, Director
as far as I know
Choreography, Text, Video Design and Performance: Graham Brown
Music: Duke Ellington, Vitamin String Quartet, Joel Brown,
The Roots, Radiohead
Lighting Design: Jonathan Dillard
Choreographic and Performance Coaching: Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig
Video Coaching: Paul Jackson
Uncertainty ... and then again...
Director: Leslie Felbain
Performers: Emily Oleson and Florian Rouiller
Lighting Design: Emily Oleson and Paul D. Jackson
Of What I am Not and What I am
Choreography: Kwame Opare
Performers: Diedre Dawkins and Bintou Kouyate
Music: Mixed and arranged by Kwame Opare: Assassinat (Take 2) Julien dans
l’ascenseur by Miles Davis, A Piece of Light by The Roots, Funkier than A Mosquito’s
Tweeter by Nina Simone
Lighting Design: Jonathan Dillard
My Ex-Boyfriend (One Short Story)
Choreography and Performance: Shannon Dooling
Lighting Design: Jonathan Dillard
Music: Luciano Berio, Arr. Spehar
Cellists: Natalie Spehar
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PROGRAM
Opus 80
Choreography: Valerie Durham
Performers: Devin Brosnan, Diana Lopez, Lara Magill, Claire Smith
and Kristin Yeung
Sound and Music Editing: Valerie Durham, James Durham
Lighting Design: Jonathan Dillard
Original Composition “80sFix”: James Durham
Music Credits: Whip It, Devo; Self Control, Laura Brannigan; What I Am, Edie
Brickell and New Bohemians; In the Air Tonight, Phil Collins; True Colors,
Cyndi Lauper; Metro, Berlin; When Doves Cry, Prince; Beat It, Michael Jackson;
Sunglasses at Night, Corey Hart; Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper; Fight
for Your Right, Beastie Boys; Money for Nothing, Dire Straits; PacMan video
game, NAAMCO.
PRODUCTION TEAM
PRODUCTION AND STAGE MANAGEMENT
Dance Production Manager
Stage Manager
Assistant Stage Manager
Erin Glasspatrick
David Yates
Catherine Gracie Jones
RUNNING CREW
Deck Crew
Wardrobe Crew
Light Board Operator
Sound Board Operator
Kaitlin Esrich and Candace Scarborough
Sydney Pearson and Melanie Clement
Madeline Fuller
Anwar Taylor
COSTUME CONSTRUCTION
Costume Shop Manager
Draper
Stichers
Stephanie Shaw
Lisa Burgess
Shana Ferguson, Brianna Forseth,
Chelsea Kerl, Lindsey Lam, Yadeedya
Mellmar, Ben Walker, students of
THET 479, THET 384
ELECTRICS
Assistant Manager of Electrics
Electrics Coordinator
Audio Shop Manager
Audio Coordinator
Laura MacAdam
Jeff Reckeweg
Kristine Eckerman
James O’Connell
SHARED GRADUATE DANCE CONCERT
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
DEVIN BROSNAN (Opus 80) is a junior dance major in the School of Theatre,
Dance, and Performance Studies. Originally from Woodbridge, Virginia, she
graduated from the Center for Fine and Performing Arts Dance Program at
Woodbridge Senior High School and then attended George Mason University
where she danced in the George Mason Dance Company’s fall concert in 2008.
She transferred to the University of Maryland in 2009 upon receiving the President’s
Transfer Student Scholarship. Since attending Maryland, she has performed in both
student works and guest artist works, including Jen McGinn’s Thank You, for the
Maryland Dance Ensemble spring concerts and the Student Dance Association’s New
Dances concerts. Recently, she performed in the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange’s The
Matter of Origins, understudied in guest artist Keith Thompson’s Which Side of the
Edge Crumbles Amidst the Soft Break and made her choreographic debut at Maryland
with a tap dance entitled Another One Bites the Dust.
GRAHAM BROWN (as far as I know) is a recently transplanted Washington DC-based
dance artist. He currently works with PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATRE, the
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (adjunct company member), as well as other freelance
choreographers. He is an MFA teaching assistant at the University of Maryland,
College Park. Previous to moving to the East Coast, Brown spent the last ten years in
Salt Lake City, where he was the founder and co-director of Movement Forum
(MoFo), a dance improvisation performance company. With MoFo as well as such
choreographers and companies as Stephen Koester, Juan Carlos Claudio,
PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATRE, Erin Lehua Brown, RawMoves and
The John/Allen Project, he has performed nationally and internationally at such
events as the Seattle Festival of alternative Dance and Improvisation, the New York
International Fringe Festival, The Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine and the
Open Look Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Brown has held adjunct faculty
positions at Utah Valley University and Salt Lake Community College and is a
frequent choreographer and teacher at colleges, high schools and independent
workshops locally and abroad. His writing on improvisation has been published by
Dancearticleweb.com, the Utah Dance Educators Organization and Contact
Quarterly. Brown holds a bachelor’s in Modern Dance from the University of
Utah College of Fine Arts, but holds more closely his wife, Lehua, and their two
children Isobella and Oliver.
STEPHANIE BURRILL (Opus 80) graduated from Montgomery College Rockville,
with an AA in dance performance in 2008. She is due to graduate from the
University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in dance performance in spring
2011. Burrill wishes to continue her education at Towson University and obtain
a kindergarten through 12th grade teaching certificate in dance.
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DIEDRE NYOTA DAWKINS (Of What I am Not and What I am) is a 2003 Bessie
Award winner and co-director of DishiBem Traditional Contemporary Dance Group.
She graduated from the N.Y.C. High School of the Performing Arts and received her
bachelor’s in dance from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is
currently working on her MFA at The University of Maryland. She was a member of
Ronald K. Brown /Evidence Dance Company for eight years, where she had the
privilege of teaching and performing in Senegal West Africa, Switzerland, Greece,
France, London and Cuba. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and has
worked with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Bebe Miller, Kevin Iega Jeff, Jawole Zollar
(Urban Bush Women) and Amaniyea Payne (Muntu Dance Theater). Dawkins has
a deep love for children and the art of teaching, and as a result, youth and the
betterment of her community is her life’s work.
Dawkins is a visiting artist at Howard University and teaches Pre-K through 8thgrade dance at The Empowerment Academy Charter School, where she is the dance
program facilitator. She’a teaching artist with Young Audiences of Maryland and has
worked as a consultant/artistic director and dance program facilitator for various
Arts institutions throughout the United States. Her accomplishments as a
program facilitator for six years include citywide dance-performance exposure and
exceptional audition preparation for students resulting in entry to elite arts
institutions throughout the United States. She has also created a highly successful
“Literacy through the Arts Curriculum” for grades Pre-K through 8 and was the
co-chair of the committee working to revise the Dance Curriculum for Baltimore
City schools. She is the co-director of Dishibem Traditional Contemporary Dance
Group and the director of DishiBem Performing Arts Preparatory, where she provides
year-round dance instruction with a concentration in health and political awareness.
She is also the founder the DPAP six-week summer intensive that culminates in
a dance class excursion to NYC for a week.
JONATHAN DILLARD (Lighting Designer) is a third year MFA candidate in lighting
design. His credits include the following. At Kogod: (Lighting Designer: Am I Black
Enough Yet? (Thesis Production), Anton in Show Business, Between Trains (assistant
lighting designer) At Kay Theatre: The Bluest Eye (lighting designer), James Joyce’s
The Dead (assistant lighting designer), The Winter’s Tale (assistant lighting designer).
Other UMD productions: Shadowboxer (assistant lighting designer), La FInta
Giardiniera (lighting designer), L’elisir d’amore (lighting designer) Outside Productions:
(Assistant lighting designer: Glass Menagerie, One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
SHANNON DOOLING (My Ex-Boyfriend (One Short Story)) is a master’s candidate in
dance and a graduate teaching assistant. Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, she began
her dance training in what would become her hometown, Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
She received advanced training at Princeton Ballet School, where she was a member
of the American Repertory Ballet Workshop. Dooling graduated magna cum laude
SHARED GRADUATE DANCE CONCERT
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from DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, in 2007 with a degree
in dance. Since then, she has performed professionally with ballet and modern dance
companies in Philadelphia, New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. Her
favorite performing role to date was creating the role of Glenda The Good Witch in
Trinette Singleton’s original ballet, Dorothy’s Adventures in Oz, with Repertory Dance
Theatre (Allentown, Pennsylvania). Dooling has taught everything from pre-ballet to
hip-hop in dance studios, art schools and outreach programs in Pennsylvania and
Maryland. She is the founder and co-director of New Street Dance Group, based in
the Philadelphia region (www.newstreetdancegroup.com).
VALERIE DURHAM (Opus 80) is the founder and artistic director of The Duncan
Dancers, a Washington DC-based modern dance company specializing in the
technique and repertory of the mother of modern dance, Isadora Duncan, and
dedicated to taking Duncan’s technique into the twenty-first century with new
choreography in the Duncan style. She also currently serves as President of Word
Dance Theater, and is a Teaching Artist with the Kennedy Center, DC Partnerships
Initiative. Durham is a second-year MFA candidate in dance at the University of
Maryland and has performed nationally and internationally, including as a soloist and
company member with the prestigious Lori Belilove & Company in New York City.
www.duncandancers.com
BINTOU KOUYATE (Of What I am Not and What I am) continues the cultural
and musical path of her father, mother and ancestors as a dynamic performer of
Manding traditions. The 150th generation of the Kouyate lineage of her father,
Diali Djimo Kouyate, she also performs with Farafina Kan, the Manding Griot
Ensemble, Memory of African Culture Performing Company and Dono Dance &
Drum Ensemble. She has toured and studied internationally in Guinea, Cote
d’Ivoire, Senegal and the Gambia. Bintou has attended Howard University School of
Business and Potomac Massage Training Institute. Currently, Bintou is a teaching
assistant of preschool children at NationHouse Positive Action Center Watoto Shule.
DIANA LOPEZ (Opus 80) is a junior double-major in family science and dance.
She has showcased her choreography in past New Dances, but this will be her first
performance for the UMD dance department. She has performed for Valerie Durham
before in Sailing into a Dream of Freedom at the National Cathedral and is excited to
dance for her once again with an 1980s flare. Lopez hopes to make the world a better
place by being a military family counselor and to share the love to dance with
young children.
EMILY OLESON (Uncertainty ... and then again...) is a MFA candidate in dance and
loves studying traditional and contemporary dance forms. In 2004, she received her
bachelor’s in theatre and dance from James Madison University, where she was a
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member of the Virginia Repertory Dance Company. While at JMU her choreography
was selected for the American College Dance Festival, and she received a summer
study scholarship to attend the America Dance Festival as a stagecraft apprentice.
After graduating, Oleson moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she began
working with Matthew Olwell and Meghan Madden to form Good Foot Dance
Company, a percussive dance theater trio using traditional dance forms like Irish
step dance and Appalachian flatfooting for vocabulary in dance theater pieces.
FLORIAN ROUILLER (Uncertainty ... and then again...) is a MFA candidate in dance
at the University of Maryland. Rouiller received his education from the John Cranko
School, David Howard and the Joffrey Ballet School in 1993. He has performed
professionally with such companies as Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co., Milwaukee
Ballet, Ohio Ballet, Ballet Chicago, City Dance Ensemble, Merce Cunningham
Company, Ballet International USA, Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Delta Festival Ballet,
Jane Franklin Dance DC, Lucy Bowen McCauley, Ballet Caracas, Daniel Singh and
Goteborgoperans Sweden.
KWAME DENSU OPARE (Of What I am Not and What I am) began studying
West African dance under the tutelage of Assane Konte, artistic director of
Kankouran West African Dance Company. He has choreographed on and performed
with Maimouna Keita Dance Co. (Marie Basse-Wiles), Forces of Nature Dance Co.
(Abdel Salaam), Kimati Dinizulu and Gala (international pop artist) among others.
Opare’s teaching credits include Ifetayo Dance School, Aims of Modzawe Cultural
Center, Bernice Johnson Dance School, Fareta Drum and Dance School, Djoniba’s
Dance Center and Gilman’s Dance School. He performed with the cast of STOMP
from 1998 to 2003 and is the founder and director of DishiBem Traditional
Contemporary Dance Group and GYMBE the Official African Dance Workout.
Kwame is also a personal trainer and health-and-fitness.
CLAIRE SMITH (Opus 80) is a junior anthropology major at the University of
Maryland. Before attending Maryland she studied and performed ballet for 12
years with Becci Kimm and Black Rock Center for the Arts. She was on the
dance team at Seneca Valley High School for four years and captain her senior
year. Smith was exposed to modern dance her freshman year at the University of
Maryland and continues to explore the diverse world of dance. Opus 80 is her
first performance at the University of Maryland.
NATALIE SPEHAR (cellist My Ex-Boyfriend (One Short Story)) has studied the cello
for 14 years and has been a member of several ensembles, including the Cleveland
Orchestra Youth Orchestra (principal, 2004-05), the Athenaeum String Quartet
(featured artist in a series of pre-concerts of The Cleveland Orchestra, 2004),
a contemporary Christian folk group, several rock bands and, most recently, the
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Élan Duo (with Doug O’Connor, saxophone), the Great Noise Ensemble and the
DC-based rock cello ensemble, Primitivity. Spehar has performed as a soloist with the
Canton Symphony Orchestra and has been awarded several scholarships, including
the Canton MacDowell Club Scholarship and the Howard Hanson Scholarship
toward her studies at the Eastman School of Music. In summer 2009, she was one of
five American performers selected to participate in Northeastern University’s Fusion
Arts Exchange, a program and concert tour funded by the U.S. Department of State
that featured young musicians from six countries. Spehar has also enjoyed several
exciting studio recording projects over the past year, including composing and
recording her first film soundtrack. She holds a bachelor’s of music degree in cello
performance as well as a Certificate in Arts Leadership from Eastman School of
Music, where she studied with cellist Alan Harris. An avid supporter of music
outreach, she has recently served as an arts & learning intern for Young Audiences,
Inc., an educator for Music For Life and a performing member of the MacDowell
Music Club, all national organizations dedicated to encouraging and providing
community music education. Spehar pursuing her master’s degree at the University of
Maryland, College Park, where she studies with David Teie and Evelyn Elsing.
DAVID YATES (stage manager) has participated in productions at CSPAC with the
PEARSONWIDRIG DANCE THEATER, and also with Tzveta Kassabova.
Yates is a first-year graduate student in fire protection engineering, also at the
University of Maryland.
KRISTEN YEUNG (Opus 80), is a sophomore Studio Art major at the University of
Maryland, College Park with a minor in Physics and a specific interest in graphic
design. She has previously performed in Thank You by Jen McGinn and the
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange’s A Matter of Origins.
AWARD RECIPIENTS
Creative and Performing Arts Scholars
Raha Behnam, Jessica Goldberg, Christina Jackson, Patricia Mullaney-Loss,
Candace Scarborough, Emily Schwarz, Kristen Vlacancich, Morgan Wallace
Dorothy Madden Dance Scholarship
Marie LaMonica
Robert H. Smith Award for Excellence in Dance
Alexandra Daniello and Rachel Wolfe
George and Ruth G. Tretter Performing Arts Scholarship
Raha Behnam
In addition, Emily Oleson and Nathan Andary received Robert H. Smith awards for
summer study scholarship
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