Title: Dancing at 100: Looking Back, Dancing Forward: A Centennial Celebration
Premiere: June 13 & 14, 2009. Dow Chemical Bldg. Central Campus UM; Dance Building, 1310 N. Univ. Ct., Central Campus; UM Blue buses to North Campus; North Campus SMTD property, near pond.
Duration: 90 minutes
Performers: 30 UM students and alumni
Program booklet with credits for all Dancing at 100 events
Description: DANCING AT 100 was a multi-stranded project I spearheaded, celebrating 100 years of dance “on the books” at the University of Michigan. Included in the week-long centenary celebration were two alumni concerts, an Ann Arbor Dance Works concert, several faculty and alumni lectures, video screenings, a special exhibit at UM’s Bentley Historical LIbrary, and a grand finale of a large-scale site dance, conceived and directed by me entitled Looking Back, Dancing Forward: A Centennial Celebration. In addition to a detailed program booklet, a commemorative book of essays recounting the history of dance at University of Michigan was created for the occasion. The 90-minute site dance was created in collaboration with 30 dance majors and alumni. The performers and audience members travelled by foot and by bus between three sites on campus, tracing the history of dance at UM from its beginnings in the Barbour Gym for Women (currently the site of the Chemistry Bldg.) to the present Dance Bldg., to a wooded hill on North campus, where a new building for dance was imagined. The Dancing at 100 events received national attention in a series of articles in The Detroit Free Press, Dance Teacher Magazine, and Dance Studio Magazine. UM posted two podcasts about the project on their gateway website, and several articles appeared locally in The University Record, The Michigan Daily, The Ann Arbor News and the Michigan Muse.
Here is how I described the site dance component of the Dancing at 100 events in the press release: “Tracing moments from the history of dance at UM across ten decades and into the future, this unique site-specific dance performance gathers approximately 30 dancer/choreographers—alumni from several eras of dance at UM, joined by current UM dance majors—to create a tapestry of movement vignettes recalling images of dance at UM past and present. Linked by three buildings—one demolished, one standing and one imagined—the performance will travel from Central Campus to North Campus. The performance will begin in the Chemistry Building, where the Barbour Gymnasium for Women stood from 1896 until it was torn down in 1977. This is where dance courses took place until the current Dance Building was erected in 1976 as an attachment to CCRB. Crossing North University, the performance will continue over the bridge that spans Washtenaw Avenue, and will echo some of the experiments of the 1960s and 1970s. An improvisational band of four live musicians will be directed by Aaron Gold. En route to the current Dance Building, the audience will pause to see a scene taking place below on Palmer Field, where women students first presented the Lantern Night performances in the early 1900s. The performance will then move to the Dance Building at the base of N. University Court, where they will see a variety of scenes of dance. Audience members will next board buses taking them to North Campus where the performance will conclude with a dance amidst the trees, and with a passing of the torch from one generation to the next. Evoking the Lantern Night performances from the earliest era of dance on campus, the performers will link the legacy of the past to a new future for dance on North Campus. UM Professor of dance Jessica Fogel, who will also be choreographing several scenes within the work, will direct the performance. The performance will feature choreography and performances by the following alumni, all living locally and nearby: Aimee Anderson, Noonie Anderson, Alana Barter, Jeanette Fischer, Carol Halsted, Holly Hobbs, Corinne Imberski, Sarah Martens, Anna McGarry, Michelle Millman, Barbara Neri, Linda Perry, Eva Powers, Erika Stowall, Beverly Robinson, and Jarel Waters.”
Video of performance: Looking Back, Dancing Forward: A Centennial Celebration. Video produced and edited by Joseph Yunkman
2009 video about the Dancing at 100 project
PRESS:
Detroit Free Press articles
Dance Studio article
Dance Teacher Magazine article
Ann Arbor News article
University Record article
The Michigan Daily article
Michigan Muse article
Photos below by Peter Smith, taken on both performance days, June 13 & 14, 2009.
