Celebrating 25 years at Power Center, the University Dance Company presents "TanzMusik" tonight through the weekend. "Tanzmusik" (German for "dance music") is an evening consisting of four dances, all inspired by German composers. Three works by dance department faculty choreographers Gay Delanghe, Jessica Fogel and Peter Sparling will be premiered. Featured is "Esplanade," choreographed by Paul Taylor, founder of his own New York City-based dance company. Kenneth Kiesler will conduct the 40-member University Symphony.
Since the beginning of last semester, the dancers have been rehearsing nonstop for what promises to be an evening full of beautiful movement, inspiring music and exciting performances by the dancers and musicians.
Peter Sparling's dance, titled "Unfinished," opens the performance. Set to Franz Schubert's "Symphony No. 8 in B Minor," 10 men and 15 women dance to the mysterious and unconventional piece.
"Themes meander, appear and disappear," Sparling said. Not only is the structure of the dance unfinished (with two movements instead of the traditional four), Sparling said the composer was "getting at feelings that were not possible for him to resolve in the (usual) form."
The set, designed by Vincent Mountain, assistant professor of design in the Department of Theatre and Drama, magically recreates a German forest. The set goes beyond the usual backdrop to "a visual depth that can inspire the imagination to greater depth," Sparling explained.
In the dance, "there is rarely an interface of the men and women, but there are hints of it," he said. The first movement, danced entirely by the men, "seemed so repressed with its dark undercurrents. The second movement had much more ... sense of open space assumed by its inhabitants. Therefore, I imagined a large group of women."
"Unfinished" is a commentary on the gender roles assumed by and on men and women, and "the need to seek a balance of both femininity and masculinity in every individual," Sparling explained.
This idea is portrayed by soloists sophomore Courtney Murphy and junior Rosanna Tavarez. "Both movements have certain resolve qualities. However, they both end in a question mark." What is unquestionable is the professional manner in which the dancers technically and emotionally perform this challenging piece.
Following "Unfinished" is Jessica Fogel's "Serioso, Now and Then," with Felix Mendelssohn's "Variations Sérleuses in D Minor, Op. 54," performed by first-year School of Music graduate student Rob Auler.
A dance about romance and relationships, the piece explores the themes of yearning for unattainable and unavailable love through 19th and 20th century couples. With eight dancers Fogel created a chamber work, which Auler describes as "interactive chamber music."
Full of playful and flirtatious scenes, "There is an alternating back and forth between the two worlds of the 19th and 20th century," Fogel explained, "and within those worlds time is fluid. ... And eventually their worlds overlap by the end of the dance."
Marking his first performance with dancers, Auler remarked excitedly that this has been a fun collaborative experience. "I am not an accompanist or the lead, yet it is still a solo piano work."
"The theme and variation form of the composition allows the piece to progress pragmatically," Auler said.
During the chorale piece of music there is a "luscious sweet center when the 19th century man gets together with the 19th century woman in a very romantic duet," explained Fogel.
As the dance progresses "things get mixed up," Fogel said, but in the end "the audience is left with the dancers wondering what the new millennium will bring on the subject of romantic relationships."
"Waltzscape," choreographed by Gay Delanghe, celebrates the staple of the dance repertoire, the waltz. The dance, created for 16 women, is playful and adorned with love letters, a wedding ring, tea cups and dresses all in the spirit of the gay '90s - 1890s, that is. Music Director Stephen Rush compose score in honor of Johann Strauss, Jr.
Rush explains his original score as "all about joke-telling ... building expectation and then knocking you out at the knees." Polkas, blues, Baptist hymns, rap, mambo and waltz - it's all in there. "The juxtaposition and superimposition of elements create ironic twists."
Yet, amid the Public Enemy and Chilean singer Mercedes Sosa samples, the dance explores the waltz and the great Romantic era. Delanghe drew her inspiration from many sources: books, history, art, as well as Isadora Duncan, one of the dance world's most influential dancer-choreographers. Duncan's circle dances and freedom of movement is very prevalent in "Waltzscape," and is flavored with senior Sara Steffanni's hip-hop solo.
Paul Taylor's "Esplanade," set to two violin concertos by J.S. Bach, closes the evening. Mary Cochran, a principal dancer with Taylor's company for 12 years, was artist in residence with the Dance Department last semester. She recreated "Esplanade" for two casts that will perform alternately this weekend.
Inspired by a woman catching a bus, Cochran explains the dance as "a beautiful, fresh, joyful and life-affirming work." The New York Times said that " "Esplanade" left the audience screaming out its excitement after heart-stopping cross stage leaps and catches and fearless bone crushing falls, all in one coursing stream of movement." A truly beautiful work by one of America's most prolific and influential choreographers, "Esplanade" is indeed spectacular.
This eclectic performance promises to be entertaining, and as Sparling said, "You will just have to go and find out for yourself!"
DAVID SMITH/Special to the Daily
Sophomore dancers Deborah Miller and Joseph Wojczynski perform in "TanzMusik."