Dance concert to examine musical impressions
By Jim Hanna
Staff Reporter
The qualities that music can bring
to the car are often translated into
images that can delight the eyes.
With that truth firmly tucked into
their toe shoes, the University of
Ncbraska-Lincoin’s Contemporary
Dance Theater plunges into their first
dance concert of the year, “Images of
Jazz.”
The varied sounds of jazz music
will accompany 25 UNL dancers who
lake to the Howell Theater stage this
Thursday, guided by the choreogra
phy of dance faculty members Lisa
Fusillo, Dec Hughes and Laura Mi
lan.
Fusillo, who is the head of the
dance program, said that the concert,
through dance, takes a look at the
varied impressions created by jazz
music.
“(The concert) was a vehicle to not
only explore different dance styles
for the students to experience, but the
jazz itself has quite a variety of styles
within that medium and these are all
explorations of how the jazz music
can be interpreted and what images
can be evoked from that jazz,” she
said.
The images evoked for the chore
ographers translate into several pieces
crafted independently by each. While
the choreographers worked alone on
each piece, they have all come to
gether for one concert that celebrates
the distinctly American sound of jazz.
“All the pieces arc still independ
ent,” Milan said. “The only thing
that’s whole is that they appear on the
same program.”
As an example of the type of dance
the concert presents, Milan offered
her piece entitled “Solifluxion.”
“Solifluxion is a geological term
that refers to the action of gravity on
dirt particles on a hillside,” Milan
I
said. “So if you break down the word,
it’s the flow of solids as opposed to
the flow of liquids, so the piece is
about a slow and controlled giving in
to the inevitable force of gravity.”
The piece is performed to the jazz
—
of Miles Davis, but the style used is
modern dance as opposed to the more
regimented style implied by jazz dance,
Fusillo said.
“Everything has a jazz base musi
cally, but you’re going to sec very,
very different things movement wise,”
Fusillo said. “We want to give the
students an opportunity to perform
varied styles.”
In adapting these varied dance styles
to the music, each choreographer
worked alone using her own tech
niques to create a piece. Hughes, a
professor of folk dance, has a specific
method she often uses when choreo
graphing.
“The way I work is I try to gel an
idea of how it (a piece of music)
begins, what’s going to happen and
how it might conclude,” she said. “I
need to know how much music I
have, what the phrasing is like where
the accents arc, where the dynamics
are so I have a whole sense of the
whole piece before I even start to
choreograph.”
Hughes said that she doesn’t al
ways start with a piece of music and
create the dance based on that music.
Sometimes, the process is the exact
opposite, beginning with a concept
for the movement and finding the
music to go along with it. This was
the process Milan used for“Soliflux
ion.”
“I had the idea for ‘Solifluxion’
and then I had to find the music that
was appropriate to the idea,” she said.
“That sometimes takes a long search
but other times you hear the music
and it inspires you what to do.”
Regardless of the process used to
generate the movement, each chore
ographer worked alone while always
remembering the entirely of the de
sired finished product. At limes, this
led to one choreographer making
suggestions for improvement to an
other, Fusillo said.
“Sometimes I find it very invigo
rating to collaborate in that way,” she
said. “Other times I find — or Laura
might find — in a piece like this
(Solifluxion) that her idea needs to
follow her own intention and there
fore a secondary collaboration is re
ally not warranted.”
Some of the UNL students who
make up the dancing corps appear in
more than one piece. Working with
three different professors using a
variety of choreographic techniques
could lead to frustration for a dancer
but such was not the case for UNL
sophomore, Jim Benson.
“I take things lightly,” he said.
“I’ll do anything a choreographer asks
JL
me to do and I’ll put 100 percent into
anything she wants me to do.”
In addition to varied dance and
choreographic styles, the cast of
“Images of Jazz” is also quite varied
both in terms of skill level and aca
demic major. Only about half of the
performers are dance majors, Fusillo
said.
“It really enhances the whole spirit
of the program to have a unified group,
no matter what your major, that are
there to work toward the goal of per
formance,” she said.
“Images of Jazz” runs Thursday
through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sun
day at 3 p.m. in the Temple Build
ing’s Howell Theater, 12th and R
streets. Tickets may be reserved by
calling the University Theater and
Dance box office.
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38 Norms tor Greg
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55 Surprise
champions, like
the 1969 Mets
57 A^/a/ame e g
58 Greek island
59 Expanse
60 Bank(on)
61 Be frugal
62 Marquee
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2 Samoan port
3 Kind of rock
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5 Most isolated
6 Diciembre s
follower
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wife
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