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Posted 10-19-00
CLEVELAND -- The Mather Dance Center will present an American dance masterpiece in celebration the 25th anniversary of the Master of Fine Arts in dance program with a gala concert at 8 p.m. November 2-4 and a 2:30 p.m. matinee Sunday, November 5. The concert takes place in Case Western Reserve University's Mather Dance Center.
Launched in 1975 by longtime friends Kathryn Karipides and Kelly Holt, the Mather Dance Program has graduated M.F.A. students who have left the University for professional careers in national dance companies, to organize or direct dance programs, to become faculty members at other universities, or to create new dance works as independent choreographers.
The evening's concert pays tribute to the program, which is one of the city's oldest existing dance programs and one that has helped its founders leave their mark on the Cleveland dance community.
As Mather Dance Center opens its new performance season, it undertakes an ambitious project in its first staging of an American dance masterpiece, with original costumes, sets, and music.
Karen Potter, CWRU's dance program director, and Gary Galbraith, associate professor of theater arts, selected Classic Kite Tails by Erick Hawkins.
"The undertaking of this project shows the strength of the dance program and how far the Mather Dance Center program has grown," says Potter.
Hawkins, a world-renowned New York choreographer, has strong connections to Mather Dance's past and current leaders. Holt, the first male dancer in Hawkins' company, and Karipides, a student of Hawkins, drew upon the Hawkins technique and aesthetics to nurture dancers and choreographers in the program.
That influence continues with Galbraith and Potter. Galbraith danced with the Hawkins Company and later joined the company of Martha Graham. Potter's connections to Hawkins date to 1975 as a teacher and later a dancer. Her first performance for Hawkins was in Classic Kite Tails, and Galbraith was a guest artist with the company for the Joyce Theater's 10th anniversary gala celebration in New York City in 1993.
Considered one of Hawkins' masterpieces, Classic Kite Tails celebrates formality with a joyous elegance. Two guests artists who are CWRU alumni -- LeAnne Smith Stedman from Opening Door Dance Theater and the dance department at Southwest Texas State University, and Louis Kavouras of Erick Hawkins Company and chair of the dance department at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas -- return to dance the Hawkins work. Joining the dancers will be Galbraith and Potter, and members of the Mather Dance Ensemble -- Carisa Armstrong, Emily Johnson, and Kaysie Seitz.
This Hawkins piece features costumes designed by the choreographer, with the dance set to the music of David Diamond's Rounds for String Orchestra.
Karipides spent 40 years building the CWRU dance program from classes in the physical education department to today's thriving program with undergraduate and graduate students. Karipides work, Two Fold One, will be featured in the concert. This is a work Karipides originally created for Kavouras' 1989 thesis concert. Kavouras, with dance faculty member and CWRU alumna Joan Meggitt, will perform this playful kinetic duet to the music of Piano Phase by Steve Reich. Ginger Saha, director of the Health Science Library, designed the costumes.
The concert will include two new dances -- Poem for Two Souls by Ginger Thatcher and BodyBind by Joan Meggitt.
A dance about possession and blind intimacy, BodyBind is set to Dmitri Shostakovich's haunting String Quartet No. 8, says Meggitt. She adds that the mournfully slow sections of the music build upon the dance's theme of control, which breaks into a running frenzy in the music's faster movements. Meggitt says the piece leaves the thought that each person might be capable of committing some evil under certain circumstances.
BodyBind is performed by CWRU students Farrell Brody, Ken Gasch, Kathy Kohatsu, Beth Salami, and Shanna Shelins.
The husband-and-wife dance team of Potter and Galbraith will appear on stage in Thatcher's Poem for Two Souls, set to Mark O'Conner's POEM FOR CARLITA. Costumes are by New York designer Jeffrey Wirsing, who has also designed for Halston and the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Admission for the concert is $9 for adults, $7 for CWRU employees and seniors citizens over age 60, and $5 for students. For information or reservations, call 216-368-6262.