Evenings of Dance includes amazing collaboration
calendar icon10 Apr 2015
LINCOLN, Neb.— Dancers, drummers and laptops. It’s not a combination that one sees very often placed together, but it is on the program for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music dance program’s Evenings of Dance performances coming up April 16-19 in the Johnny Carson Theater at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
When Assistant Professor of Percussion and Jazz Studies/coordinator of the percussion program David Hall joined the UNL faculty, he expressed a desire to Associate Professor of Dance/Area Head for Dance Susan Levine Ourada to collaborate.
“I was blown away by ‘Evenings of Dance’ last year -- the choreography, performance, and production are exceptional,” Hall said. “Susan’s artistic approach really resonated with me, and I thought doing a piece with dancers, drummers, and laptops would be perfect!”
The piece will take place to open up Act II each performance. It’s a movement entitled 120bpm from a piece called neither Anvil nor Pulley by Dan Trueman. The dancers include Amber Hongsermeier, Kayla Klammer, Patrick Stayer and Megan Stice. The percussionists include Cory Davis, Ian McCollum, Zach Paris and Adam Schweitzer.
“This is one of the most fascinating and exciting percussion set ups we’ve used here,” Hall said. “Each percussionist has a mixture of traditional percussion instruments, homemade objects, and technology. Each set up has some tuned metal pipes and slabs of wood that are connected to a laptop via contact microphones. The laptop processes these sounds in real time with a number of really cool and futuristic effects that accompany the live performer. At the end of the piece, we actually use four modified golf video game controllers to create some more effects. The interaction with the laptops in real time is one of the most interesting things about the piece.”
Levine Ourada added, “It was a true collaboration with the dancers. I would offer phrase work and they would work on it and generate new material. One section is the result of a commission we had at the Sheldon Museum of Art and we took Amber Hongsermeier and Patrick Stayer’s concept and moved it right into the larger piece… it fit perfectly visually and intentionally. When we finally met with the percussion ensemble for the first time it was an awesome synergy: what we hoped would align, did and we are pretty happy.”
The group has rehearsed separately for quite awhile, rehearsed together in Mabel Lee Hall earlier this week and will rehearse almost every night during the week leading up to the actual performances.
“I’m beyond excited to see and hear this in the newly renovated Johnny Carson Theater,” Hall said. “I’m so impressed and proud of these performers; their work is extremely compelling. I’ve come to think of this piece as a collaboration between not two quartets, but three (dancers, percussionists, and laptops). The laptops respond to the percussionists and vice versa, the dancers respond to both, and then the percussionists respond to the dancers (thus influencing the laptops and starting it all over again). Watching those interactions unfold in real time is remarkable.”
Evenings of Dance takes place each night on Thursday, Friday and Saturday starting at 7:30 p.m. and then on Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $12 General Admission; $10 UNL Faculty/Staff; $7 Students/Seniors. They are available approximately one hour prior to the performance at the Carson Theater door.
“This is my 10th Evenings of Dance and my 11th spring dance concert,” Levine Ourada said. “I named it EOD when I began working here full time as an homage to the concert I performed in during my undergraduate years, under the tutelage of an inspiring and devoted mentor.”
Levine Ourada is very excited to see it performed each night.
“How beautiful it is when the music and dance can come together…live and in person… to create what is bigger than each individually. I love this process!”