Washington University Dance Theatre (WUDT), the annual showcase of professionally choreographed works performed by student dancers, will present “Transmotion,” this weekend in Edison Theatre.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 4 and 5, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6. The concert, sponsored by the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences, features more than three dozen student dancers, selected by audition, in seven original works by faculty and guest choreographers. Pieces range from ballet and contemporary dance to works drawing on Chinese and Native American traditions.
Cecil Slaughter, senior lecturer in dance and director of WUDT, said that the theme for this year’s concert grew out of conversations among the dance faculty.
“Though stylistically diverse, we’re all interested in this idea of using dance and movement as a tool for communication,” Slaughter said. “‘Transmotion’ reflects a collective sense of crossing cultural borders and boundaries while also suggesting the evolution of our personal processes.”
The concert will feature five faculty works as well as two new pieces choreographed by a pair of distinguished visiting artists.
Paula Weber, chair and professor of dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, recently set “Souls Intertwined,” a contemporary ballet work for eight students. An accomplished performer, Weber has been a soloist with the Lyric Opera Ballet of Chicago and a principal dancer with the Milwaukee Ballet.
She also has worked with many of today’s most renowned choreographers, including Bill T. Jones, Laura Dean, Charles Molton and Kevin Jeff. She is a member of the Wylliams/Henry Danse Theatre as well as principal dancer/ballet mistress with the Albany Berkshire Ballet.
Rulan Tangen, director of DANCING EARTH — Indige-nous Contemporary Dance Creations in Santa Fe, N.M., worked with 12 students to set a new dance exploring the iconography of ancient Cahokia — the largest and most influential Native settlement north of Mexico, situated just east of present-day St. Louis — as well as issues of assimilation, diversity and extinction. Many of these themes also will be integrated into Tangen’s “Of Bodies Of Elements,” her forthcoming full-length work about Native perspectives on humanity’s changing in relationship to earth.
“In many ways, Rulan’s work epitomizes what ‘Transmotion’ is all about,” Slaughter said. “As a choreographer, she draws on her own cultural experiences and cultural background. Yet, at the same time, she also incorporates elements from other dance idioms, such as modern, ballet and powwow.
“She’s literally dancing across lines of discipline and culture,” Slaughter said.
Also on the program are:
• “Nocturnal Landscapes.” Mary-Jean Cowell, associate professor and coordinator of the Dance Program in Arts & Sciences, choreographed mysterious, occasionally wistful modern work for eight dancers, which explores nocturnal associations and dream-like images. The piece is set to the music of Frederic Chopin, James Hegarty and George Strait.
• “It Sang A Long Time Ago.” The husband-and-wife team of David W. Marchant, senior lecturer in dance, and Holly Seitz Marchant, a faculty member at Saint Louis University and Maryville University, choreographed this new duet, which is performed by Adrienne Hayes and Jonathan White. David describes the piece as “a fictional movement drama peering through the window on the lives of two companions.”
• “EMERGE.” Slaughter choreographed this large-scale piece for 16 dancers, set to music by Savage Aural Hotbed. “This work deals with the unveiling and peeling back of layers of awareness,” Slaughter said. “It is the journey of a novice through an alternate reality and a hierarchy of understanding.”
• “Roses, Cokes and the Flying Pig.” Ting-Ting Chang, Ph.D., the Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the PAD, offers this work for 12 dancers. As a choreographer, Chang — who also serves as artistic director for DreamDance Contemporary Arts — explores the aesthetics, visual images and spiritual strength of her Chinese ancestry and movement disciplines in ways at once traditional and postmodern.
• “Brimming.” Mary Ann Rund, adjunct lecturer in dance, presents this classical modern piece for six dancers, choreographed in 2000 as a tribute to late dancer Stephanie Jill Silverman.
Tickets — $10 for students, faculty, staff and seniors and $15 for the public — are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office and all MetroTix outlets. For more information, call 935-6543.