USF dance concert to explore anger and grace starting tonight
By AMBER MOBLEY
Published October 28, 2005
Sometimes anger can be beautiful and grace can be ferocious.
From the culture of West Africa to the deserts of Iraq, from the land of Greek mythology to the insides of the female psyche, students and faculty of USF's School of Theatre and Dance will explore those realms in a fall dance concert, Of Anger and Grace. The first show of the 2005-06 season will open with Child Comes Home, a new dance piece choreographed by USF Dance faculty member John Parks. Child Comes Home features more than a dozen performers dancing, drumming and narrating the life and work of Pearl Primus, a West African dancer-scholar-anthropologist in the 1940s - a presentation that Parks describes as the "grace" in Of Anger and Grace.
Primus once said, "Why do I dance? Dance is medicine. It's the seam which eases, for a while, the terrible frustration common to all human beings who because of race, creed or color are invisible."
Grief, a new dance-theater work by USF Dance faculty member Gretchen Ward Warren, is inspired by letters from soldiers in Iraq to loved ones at home. Cellist Scott Kluksdahl, a professor at the USF School of Music, will accompany the performance. New York actor, playwright and USF Theatre faculty member Fanni Green is the dramaturge and voice coach for the project.
From the director of Urban Bush Women comes the piece Bitter Tongue. Restaged by USF faculty member and former Urban Bush Women soloist Carolina Garcia, Bitter Tongue is a mix of potent gestures, live music and the dancers' own voices in a piece about oppression.
The presentation's fourth and final piece is set to a score by the English duo Dead Can Dance and choreographed by USF Dance faculty member Michael Foley. In Persephone, 14 women explore the darker side of the female psyche as they battle their way through an internal and external hell.
If you go
The dance concert will be presented at 8 tonight, Saturday and Nov. 3-5 and at 3 p.m. Sunday. All performances are in Theatre 1 on USF's Tampa campus. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for seniors and students.
Tickets fo r Of Anger and Grace are available at the College of Visual & Performing Arts Box Office, 4202 E Fowler Ave., or can be purchased online at www.artsmart.usf.edu For information or directions, or to place a telephone order with a credit card, call 813 974-2323.
