Washington University Dance Theatre to present BODYMIND/Art of Movement Dec. 1-3

Washington University Dance Theatre (WUDT), the annual showcase of professionally choreographed works performed by student dancers, will present BODYMIND/Art of Movement, its 2006 concert, Dec. 1-3 in Edison Theatre.

Performances — sponsored by the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences — begin at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 1 and 2, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3.

Tickets are $15 — $9 for students, senior citizens and Washington University faculty and staff — and are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office, (314) 935-6543, and all MetroTix outlets. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-6543.

BODYMIND will feature close to 50 dancers, selected by audition, performing seven works by faculty and guest choreographers.

“People often think of the body and the mind as separate entities,” says Cecil Slaughter, lecturer in dance and director of WUDT. “But in dance you don’t have that division. Dancers and choreographers actually think and conceptualize their work through the body. Movement becomes a kind of grammar or language — a form of communication between dancer and audience.”

“All of the works on the program are very different, yet they also play off of one another,” Slaughter continues. “The idea of community forms a kind of common thread between them — the individual within a community, or exiled from a community, or causing or responding to turmoil within it. As artistic director, it’s been very exciting to see these pieces come together.”

A highlight of the concert will be the St. Louis debut of Martha Graham’s modern classic Steps in the Street. Excerpted from Chronicle (1936), Graham’s celebrated response to the Spanish Civil War, Steps in the Street includes 15 dancers and was set earlier this semester by a pair of visiting artists, Gary Galbraith and Bonnie Oda Homsey, both former principal dancers with the Martha Graham Dance Company

“Like Picasso’s Guernica (unveiled the following year), Steps in the Street is a modernist expression of horror at the devastation of war, including homelessness and exile,” notes Mary-Jean Cowell, associate professor and coordinator of the Dance Program, who served as rehearsal director for the piece. “There’s an angular, twisted quality to some of the movements. It’s all about tension and anger and the resolve that this will not happen again.

“It’s also been a great experience for students,” Cowell adds, “both in terms of learning Graham’s choreography and in terms of finding the appropriate energy and imagery within themselves.”

(Graham’s work can also be seen in the exhibition Caught! Modern Dance Photographs by Barbara Morgan, on view in the university’s Olin Library through Dec. 21. Drawn largely from Homsey’s personal collection, Caught! focuses on the pioneering photographer who captured many iconic images of Graham’s work during the 1930s and ’40s. For more information about the exhibit, call (314) 935-5495, or e-mail spec@wulib.wustl.edu.)

Also featured on the program is Hallowed Be Thy Name, an original ballet-influenced work for eight dancers by David Curwen, associate professor of dance at Western Michigan University and artistic director of The Western Dance Project. Curwen, who served as a visiting artist in September, sets this “tapestry of family, religion and violence” to a mixture of early American music and 17th-century English country dances.

Other works include:

Thillana: Asha Prem, adjunct instructor and founder of St. Louis’ celebrated School of Dances of India, choreographs this work for six dancers. Though performed in the Bharata Natyam dance style of south India, it also includes elements of Kathak, a dance form originating in North India. In the latter part of this piece, dancers take the form of Krishna, one of the most beloved of Hindu deities, and Radha, his consort.

One Among Many: Cowell choreographs this work for 13 dancers, all of whom have developed their own solo material. The piece explores “how a sense of individual distinctness connects (or does not connect) with others, individually or collectively.”

Women’s Voices: Christine Knoblauch-O’Neal, senior lecturer and director of the Ballet Program, choreographs this work for five dancers.

Divertimento: David W. Marchant, senior lecturer in dance, choreographs this work for eight dancers, in which “a young man, lost on his journey, becomes an amusing diversion to the boredom of a brood of odd feminine creatures.”

Psychopomp: Slaughter directs this work for 17 dancers. “The Psychopomp is a spirit guide that directs souls to the other side,” he explains. “This work is about ritual within a group of souls that travel and evolve together.”