Title: Glancing Back, Dancing Forward:
A Dance and Photography Installation
Premiere: University Dance Company, Power Center lobby, Ann Arbor, Michigan. February 2-5, 2017. Installation funded by the UM Bicentennial Committee. Beyond the live performances given February 2-5, the exhibit remained in place for several weeks in the Power Center lobby.
Duration: 26 minutes
Choreography by Jessica Fogel, in collaboration with the dancers
Duet clogging routine by Susan Filipiak
Phrases from Doris Humphrey’s Water Study taught by Jillian Hopper
Exhibit Design: Stephanie Brown, Elizabeth Benedict, and Jessica Fogel
Music: A musical collage that includes excerpts from:
“12 Graz Waltzes, D.924, Op.91, No.4” by Franz Schubert
“Albumblatter, Opus 124, No 16, Schlummerlied in E Flat Major” by Robert Schumann
“Double Portrait” by David Borden
“Eight Pieces for Piano, Op. 88, Burlesque” by Alexander Tcherepnin
“I Want to Go Back to Michigan” by Irving Berlin
“Mountain Belle Schottische” by Charles Kinke
Dancers: Shea Carponter-Broderick, Katrina Granger, Johanna Kepler, Emma Lambert, Jolie Moray, Claudia Ronchetti, Alexis Rosenstrauch, Maya Tinoco, Taylor Valadez, Alyssa Winnie
Notes: Inspired by the photographs and artifacts on exhibit, performers reenact creative investigations from dance courses dating from 1909 through the 1930s — an early history of dance at U-M which is not well known. Elements of courses in Swedish gymnastics, clogging, playground games and dances, aesthetic dancing, and natural dancing are on display. Included is a clogging routine choreographed by Susan Filipiak in a manner that would have been appropriate for clogging students of the 1920s. The performance includes phrases from Water Study, an iconic 1928 work choreographed by modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, first performed by dance students at U-M in 1934 at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Within the performance, the dancers bring activities into the present, performing studies they created in their composition course in Fall 2016.
Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Roger Arnett, the Bentley Historical Library, Glenn Bering, Laura Brinker, Kirk Donaldson, Doug Edwards, Sean Hoskins, Amanda Mengden, Peter Smith, Kerianne M. Tupac, and Dianne Widzinski.
Video of lobby performance
Final report for U-M’s Bicentennial Office
Photos below by Jessica Fogel of lobby installation set up
Photos below by Kirk Donaldson of lobby performance
