Dispatches
The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance Richmond Ballet returned to New York’s Joyce Theater this spring with a program that included Vestiges, created by choreography faculty Colin Connor. First commissioned in 2000 and performed several times since by the ballet, most recently in 2009, Vestiges has been described by Spectrum as “nothing short of hypnotic.” It is the third Connor opus to appear on the stages of the Joyce. In other projects, he has been working on a dance film, Shorelife. Performances of other works this winter have included Pyre, by the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, and arena, by the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre. Connor has two big projects forthcoming: a performance of his work Corvidae is taking place in May at the Kennedy Center in Washington, and in September the Los Angeles Theater Center is presenting the first fullevening of his choreography in L.A. The program includes The Body Is A House without Walls and The End of Magic, both of which were developed with CalArts dancers.
School of Film/Video During the past year, Katie Diamond (bfa 03) has performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and the Mark Morris Dance Group, toured a solo concert featuring works by Jose Limón, Anna Sokolow and fellow alum Jonathan Fredrickson (see below), and taught a workshop in Santiago, Chile, at the dance studio of CalArts classmate Francisca Garcia (bfa 03). Diamond also adjudicated the international dance competition Talenti in Palcoscenico in Brindisi, Italy. Jonathan Fredrickson (bfa 06), a member of the Limón Dance Company, has been invited to create two new dances for Limón’s upcoming season. His earlier commission for the company, The Edge of Some World, debuted in December at the Beijing National Performing Arts Center. In other news, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s second company, hs2, premiered Fredrickson’s Luna Sea in Aachen as part of its Germany tour this past March. His piece had been selected as one of the winners of Hubbard Street’s Choreographic Competition last year. Choreographer Sahar Javedani (mfa 03) concluded her whirlwind four-day residency at Dance Theater Workshop in New York with two work-in-progress performances of The Turquoise Lounge. The piece is inspired by a true story of a group of travelers detained together at an airport. Lounge examines the “physical and emotional territories of allegiance,” questions Western and Middle Eastern stereotypes, and charts “linguistic confrontations, visceral resignations and voracious appropriations” of its characters, says the artistic director of compani javedani. Ryan Mason (bfa 07) is dancing as a member of johannes wieland, the resident company of the Staatstheater Kassel in Germany. He is currently collaborating on the company’s new production, entitled Roadkill, which features original music by Ben Frost. It premieres this July in New York at Dance Theater Workshop.
Vestiges by Colin Connor, performed by Richmond Ballet. Dancers: Cody Beaton and Angela Hutto.
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Movement seen through the camera’s eye was the subject of the inaugural San Francisco Dance Film Festival in March. One of the festival’s two honorees was dance film faculty Mitchell Rose, who spoke and showed several of his works—including a preview of a newly completed dance film called Advance. Rose then traveled to Atlanta for a stint as juror for that city’s annual film festival. He also presented an evening of film that concluded with his trademark audience-participation performance piece, The Mitch Show.
The Institute was once again well-represented, with seven entries, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Returning to the continent was faculty member James Benning’s Ruhr, following its U.S. premiere at redcat. Fellow faculty Janie Geiser, of the School of Theater’s Cotsen Center for Puppetry and Arts, and Lewis Klahr, of the Schools of Film/Video and Theater, each contributed a short animated film: Geiser with Ghost Algebra and Klahr with Wednesday Morning Two A.M. Also featured were Laida Lertxundi’s (mfa 07) short My Tears Are Dry and Akosua Adoma Owusu’s (Art–Film/Video mfa 08) lyrical documentary me broni ba (my white baby). mfa candidate Gregory Rentis, of the Film Directing Program, showed his thesis film Sundown and Rotterdam veteran Deborah Stratman (mfa 95) debuted the doc Walking Is Dancing. James Benning then went on to take part in the Berlin International Film Festival, where he gave a live film performance of his latest work, Reforming the Past, a reworking of his own North on Evers in hd accompanied by live narration. Tim Burton (bfa 79) has enjoyed a banner year. First, he was the subject of a major—in fact, unprecedented—retrospective presented by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Bringing together hundreds of artworks, film-related objects and moving image works, the exhibition was moma’s largest-ever effort devoted to a filmmaker. It also included screenings of 14 of Burton’s feature films. Not on the moma list was his latest, Alice in Wonderland, with Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter. The film, which opened in March as the no. 1 movie worldwide, was hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as “truly, madly wonderful” and a “whimsically appointed dazzler.” The cavalcade of accolades continued at this year’s Annie Awards, the highest honors in animation, as Burton, along with CalArts trustee emeritus Jeffrey Katzenberg, received the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contributions to the art of animation. Finally, Burton was selected as jury president for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Disney/Pixar’s Up, directed and co-written by Pete Docter (bfa 90), made a clean sweep of the major animation feature prizes during this past awards season when Docter stepped up to the podium to collect the Oscar for Animated Feature Film at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. Coraline, written and directed by Henry Selick (mfa 77, see next page for more), and The Princess and the Frog, co-directed and co-written by John Musker (77) and John Clements, were in contention for the same prize. The Disney/Pixar hit,