Wexner Center for the Arts | FluxFlow Program Notes

wexner center for the arts AT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESENTS

FluxFlow Dance Project Ursula

2019–20 PERFORMING ARTS SEASON

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POLICIES Late seating and reentry after the program has begun are generally not permitted at dance and theater presentations. When late seating is permitted, latecomers will be seated during a break so as not to disturb other patrons.

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COVER PHOTO: KATE SWEENEY

FluxFlow Dance Project Ursula

THU–SAT, DEC 5–7 | 8 pm SUN, DEC 8 | 2 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE

This event is coproduced by Livable Futures, a project of Ohio State’s Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design.

The Wexner Center’s presentation of this event is made possible by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Ohio Arts Council, American Electric Power Foundation, The Columbus Foundation, Nationwide Foundation, and Huntington Bank.

Additional support is provided by Cardinal Health Foundation.

this presentation made possible by

additional support

CARDINAL HEALTH FOUNDATION

PROGRAM

FluxFlow Dance Project Ursula

CHOREOGRAPHER

Russell Lepley

ASSOCIATE CHOREOGRAPHER

Filippo Pelacchi

PERFORMERS/COLLABORATORS

Kelly Hurlburt Russell Lepley Filippo Pelacchi

MUSIC

Johann Sebastian Bach Sam Johnson

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Oded Huberman

INTERMEDIA DRAMATURGY

Norah Zuniga Shaw

COSTUMES

Linda Lepley

VIDEO

Doug Carraway

DOCUMENTATION

Doug Carraway Tom Lepley

Production Coordinator

Hana Newfeld

PROGRAM NOTE

Ursula

Will you keep your fancy clothes on, for me?

Can you bear a little longer to wear that leash?

My love, I swear by the air I breathe: Sooner or later, you’ll bare your teeth —EXCERPT FROM JOANNA NEWSOM’S “MONKEY AND BEAR”

I worked as a professional dancer in other people’s companies for 10 years and, without exception, I always thought I knew better than the people I worked for.

When I first heard the song “Monkey and Bear” I instantly identified with both the frustrated, megalomaniacal monkey, too egotistical to submit to others, and the diligent, obsequious bear, too insecure to become self-reliant. In Ursula, inspired by Newsom’s song, I tell the story of the monkey and the bear because it is my story and the story of so many people I have worked with and for. It is a story about those who are moved—compelled—to make art, who want desperately to be loved, and who have done things that are beautiful, tragic, and hilariously flawed in the pursuit of art and love. Ursula is a story of power, pride, and piteousness. And it is affectionately dedicated to anyone who has ever entertained fantasies of grandeur while working for people whom they disdain.

—Russell Lepley Resident Choreographer and Codirector of FluxFlow Dance Project

WRITING ABOUT THE PERFORMING ARTS S T U D E N T E S S AY

“Making Space” in Contemporary Art

By Rani Bawa, third-year student in neuroscience, dance, and clinical psychology at Ohio State I recently observed a rehearsal of Ursula and listened to an interview with Russell Lepley, conducted by Demetra Chiafos (Ohio State, dance and Japanese language, class of 2020). As the rehearsal unfolded, what stood out most was the collaboration between the dancers. The genuine connection and friendship between Lepley, Pelacchi, and Hurlburt shone through both in the in-between moments of rehearsal, and the running of the movements themselves. After each run, the dancers stopped and discussed which choreographic elements went smoothly and which needed further development. This process intrigued me, especially having been trained in classical ballet, where the power boundaries are much more defined in the rehearsal process. The choreographer or director makes decisions about the piece and the dancers follow those decisions. In his interview, Lepley reflected a bit on his own background as a dancer and how his past fuels his vision of Ursula. Having been a member of a ballet company, he expressed a feeling of “being willfully imprisoned”—a feeling of having chosen to be in the company, being privileged to be there, but of not having a real voice.

This element, along with many others, is an element of tradition that the work of FluxFlow strives to break.

This selection is part of Writing about the Performing Arts at Ohio State, an interdisciplinary student-led project supported by the Ronald and Deborah Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award.

Students from departments across the university composed responses to the center’s 2019–20 performing arts season under the direction of award recipient and Department of Dance Professor Karen Eliot and Manager of Public University Programs Alana Ryder with support from Performing Arts Director Lane Czaplinski. For the full text and other student writing, visit wexarts.org.

PHOTO: KATE SWEENEY

BIOGRAPHIES Russell Lepley, cofounder and resident choreographer of FluxFlow Dance Project, is a dance artist based in Columbus, Ohio. Lepley has danced professionally with Houston Ballet II; Columbus’s BalletMet; Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal; Hessisches Staatstheater, Wiesbaden, Germany; and Gärtnerplatztheater, Munich, before transitioning into the role of choreographer.

The success of his first work, commissioned by Gärtnerplatztheater in 2016 and selected for additional performances at Regensburger Tanztage in Germany, inspired him to pursue choreography full time. Returning to his hometown of Columbus, Lepley established FluxFlow Dance Project and its sister project, Flux + Flow Dance and Movement Center, with his husband and collaborator, Filippo Pelacchi, in 2017. This flourishing community of devoted beginning dancers is guided by the same principles that inform Lepley and Pelacchi’s own approaches to dance. In 2018, Lepley was awarded a Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Columbus Dances Fellowship and the first Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob's Pillow, where he began the work that resulted in Ursula.

Other recent work by Lepley has been presented at the Columbus Museum of Art, the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, and Columbus Dance Theater, among other venues. His work challenges conventional ideas about dance, experimenting with narrative and telling familiar—or almost familiar— stories through unconventional perspectives. Russell begins the choreographic process with movement generated through the direct transposition of music to the body. He then abstracts this foundational choreography, using components of musical composition, theater, poetry, and visual art. The result is movement that is a translation of emotion—communicating feeling and story in a distinctive and wholly original way.

Filippo Pelacchi, associate choreographer and codirector of FluxFlow Dance Project, is from Florence, Italy. Pelacchi has danced with Ballet Junior de Genève; Introdans, Netherlands; and Gärtnerplatztheater, Munich, working with such choreographers as Alexander Ekman, Yuval Pick, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Nacho Duato, Lucinda Childs, Twyla Tharp, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Marco Goecke, Christopher Roman, and Tony Rizzi. While in Munich, Pelacchi began teaching classes for adults, discovering a way to offer a joyful experience that was often life-altering for his students. It gave him the chance not only to share his knowledge and love of dance, but to inspire and nurture others through art. As cofounder and performing artist at FluxFlow Dance Project, Pelacchi strives to make work that is deeply human and communicative, born of lived experience and emotion, and that is relatable yet surprising, connecting the audience to the creative dream that unfolds onstage. His commitment to this approach informs both his movement and his teaching, and is central to the mission of the Flux + Flow Dance and Movement Center.

BIOGRAPHIES Kelly Hurlburt is a dancer, educator, and performer with roots in Columbus, Ohio. Since graduating with a BFA in dance from Ohio State in 2014, Hurlburt has performed and taught both throughout the US and internationally in China, Israel, and Denmark. She has led workshops at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing; Shanghai University; Beijing Dance Academy; Zichri Theater at the International Dance Village in Kibbutz Ga’aton, Israel; and throughout Denmark. Hurlburt has studied extensively with and performed work by Bebe Miller, Noa Zuk, Abby Zbikowski, Mats Ek, Rami Be'er, Nancy Stark Smith, and Russell Lepley. Hurlburt frequently travels to research her craft in intensive workshops, festivals, and residencies. When she isn't performing, Hurlburt facilitates classes in the Columbus community for a variety of ages and ability levels. She is a passionate advocate for movement artists in Columbus as a founding member of Columbus Dance Alliance. Hurlburt also serves on the CDA WORKS Committee, which nurtures a partner project with the Wexner Center for the Arts to highlight a diverse range of local movement artists through a curated performance. SeaBus Dance Company is a passion project that Hurlburt shares with her partner, Josh Hines. It is a collective of movers with interest in performing improvisational, evening-length work and researching the conversation between form and freedom using such specialized techniques as contact improvisation, group tuning, and score building.

Sam Johnson is a teacher, performer, arranger, and recording artist living in Columbus, Ohio. Currently a doctoral candidate at Ohio State’s School of Music, Sam received his master’s degree from the university in 2015. Sam is a founding member of CELLOHIO, a cutting-edge cello ensemble that brings music to dynamic spaces. Sam’s band Sweet Teeth, a Columbus-based electronic poppunk duo, released its third album, Soft Landing on the Sun, in October 2019.

Oded Huberman holds a BA in dance from the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. He is a Certified Assistant in brass metalwork and a Certified Master of Stage Technology with a background in European contemporary theater and dance performance. Huberman has extensive experience touring internationally. He joined PACT Zollverein-Choreographisches Zentrum NRW (Essen, Germany) in 2000 where he served as master craftsman of stage technology and representative technical director for more than a decade. While at PACT, Huberman produced and operated shows for some of the bestknown companies and artists in Europe, including Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Needcompany, Meg Stuart, Forced Entertainment, Rimini Protokoll, Ultima Vez, Jonathan Burrows, and many others. From 2004 to 2012 Huberman served as technical director and tour technician for Mette Ingvartsen’s performance company at major European festivals such as Festival d'Automne à Paris, SPRING (Utrecht), and Tanz im August (Berlin). In 2011, Huberman was also the managing technician for the tour of Norah Zuniga Shaw’s Synchronous Objects: Degrees of Unison interactive media installation in Asia and Europe. Since 2012 Huberman has worked as the interdisciplinary production manager for Ohio State’s Department of Dance and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) with a research agenda focusing on interdisciplinary performance and its digital design and operation.

BIOGRAPHIES Norah Zuniga Shaw is an intermedia artist and creative director best known for her digital projects and award-winning collaborations with animator Maria Palazzi and choreographers William Forsythe (Synchronous Objects) and Bebe Miller (TWO). Shaw’s public lectures, performances, and exhibitions tour widely and have been featured in significant venues in the US, Europe, and Asia, most recently at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. She is a professor in Ohio State’s Department of Dance with a joint appointment at ACCAD and is currently touring the Livable Futures project, which includes radio ballets, creative public dialogues, and transmedia performance rituals on climate change.

Linda Lepley attended the Clarissa School of Fashion Design in Pittsburgh. She has been making costumes and dresses, and reupholstering for over 40 years, and is grateful to God for blessing her with an understanding of garment construction.

When approached to create costumes for Ursula, Lepley thought: “A monkey and a bear? Fake-fur unitards?,” but was grateful for the opportunity and the faith FluxFlow Dance Project had in her.

Livable Futures is a growing network of creative folks fostering inventive solutions for survival under planetary conditions of unpredictability and crisis.

Livable Futures’ projects are creative and collaborative; they integrate artistic, scientific, and scholarly methods and practices; and they are inclusive and socially responsive.

FluxFlow Dance Project Cofounded by international dance artists Russell Lepley and Filippo Pelacchi, FluxFlow Dance Project creates compelling works that explore the human condition through the intersections of dance, music, theater, and the visual arts.

The project’s voice, a decided break from tradition, challenges conventional ideas about dance as well as about narrative and meaning, and seeks to transform the unmentionable into the universal through humor, compassion, and vulnerability.

FluxFlow Dance Project would like to thank the community of students at Flux + Flow Dance and Movement Center. Their passion for dance and enthusiastic support of our artistic endeavors feeds and inspires us every day. Thank you to Kate Sweeney for the beautiful photos that gave life to our characters and helped to inspire and inform our light design. Thank you to Linda Lepley, Allan Lepley, Hannah Marcus, Mathilde Gilhet, Michelle Herman, Susan Van Pelt Petry, Lucille Toth, Tom Lepley, Mara Frazier, Stacie Sells, Doug Carraway, and the countless others who generously gave their time and support to the development of this project. We could not make this work without all of the wonderful people who surround us and enrich our lives.

PHOTO: KATE SWEENEY

UPCOMING EVENTS

THEATER

Miguel Gutierrez

This Bridge Called My Ass FRI, JAN 24 | 8 pm SAT, JAN 25 | 2 & 8 pm SUN, JAN 26 | 2 pm PERFORMANCE SPACE

Back to Back Theatre

PHOTO: IAN DOUGLAS

Gutierrez plays on the title of a seminal anthology of third-wave feminist essays for a provocative work that explores and exploits clichés of queerness and cultural identity.

THEATER

The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes THU, FEB 13 | 8 pm FRI, FEB 14 | 8 pm SAT, FEB 15 | 2 & 8 pm

The globally recognized Australian group Back to Back Theatre confronts the changing nature of intelligence in contemporary society through a brutally honest public meeting led by five activists with intellectual disabilities.

ON SALE NOW—TICKETS.WEXARTS.ORG | (614) 292-3535

PHOTO: JEFF BUSBY

PERFORMANCE SPACE