Title: Identified Flying Objects: 1-800-COSMOS*

Premiere: February 2-5, 2006. University Dance Company. One of several dance works on the evening “Dance to the Music.” Power Center, Ann Arbor, MI

Duration: 15 min.

Music: “Flying” from “UFO” (1999) by Michael Daugherty
Video backdrop: Russ Kuhner

Set Design: Vincent Mountain

Props: Arthur Ridley

Lighting Design: Mary Cole

Costume Design: John Woodland

Dancers: Rodney Brown, Stephanie Calandro, Krisilyn Tony Frazier, Jennifer Harge, Christie Lynn Jenuwine, Julie Leppelmeier, Taryn Akemi Look, Jordan Newmark, Alexander Springer, Samantha Stone, Erika Stowall, Kristina Tate, Jenny Thomas, Jenna Lane Walters, Jarel Waters, Alison Woerner
Understudy: Aidan Feldman

Choreographer’s Notes: In dialogue with the shifting moods of the music, I played with a series of images, not of UFO’s but rather of IFOs — identifiable flying objects. Stars burst and particles fly, tempers fly, props fly in and out, clothes fly, time flies, and there is, up above the world so high, a tea tray in the sky, so of course there are cups and…saucers.

Composer’s Notes: UFO was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra through a grant from the John and June Hechinger Commissioning Fund and written for Evelyn Glennie. The concerto is inspired by the unidentified flying objects that have become an obsession in American popular culture. In the third movement, “Flying,” a mysterious melody, introduced by the vibraphone, is echoed kaleidoscopically like a halo of sound throughout the orchestra. Periodically this slow motion music accelerates into fugues flying at supersonic tempos. The solo percussionist gives a virtuoso performance on vibraphone, marktree, and cymbals that hover and shimmer in the air like flying saucers.

Description: This dance was created for a concert that featured several dances by UM Dance faculty, all choreographed to University of Michigan composers.A whimsical work with a sci-fi sensibility, the dance follows the mods of Daughterty’s score closely. The dance lets a lots of things fly, including dancers, clothes, props, and tempers. Russ Kuhner’s video backdrop of Hubble telescope photographs, along with Mary Cole’s lighting design that created a dappled floor, allowed for an immersive stage environment. The dance was comprised of a series of images that followed the moods of the music. To come up with the imagery, I free associated on objects in the sky that one could identify, including the wilis in Giselle, who in original19th century productions, were flown onto stage with harnesses and wires. In the final images, tables and chairs float down to the stage from above, and the dancers enter and have a tea party, playing with their cups and saucers. When the dancers hold their teacups to their ears, and pick up their plates and hold them toward the twinkling stars in the video backdrop, it is as if they are making magical contact with beings in the cosmos. The plates were equipped with battery lights string lights, so they too twinkled. This image for me was on one level a private one, my way of signaling to longtime colleague and friend Gay Delanghe, who was dying, that I would remain in touch with her, whatever the cosmic distances. Gay also contributed a dance to the evening, and it was her last Power Center work produced.

Photos below by Peter Smith. Two different runs of the work are captured in these photos.