UofSC Dance’s Breaking Boundaries concert features choreography from Alonzo King LINES Ballet guest artist

The UofSC Dance Program will present Breaking Boundaries, a contemporary dance concert featuring several premiere works, February 15-18 at Drayton Hall Theatre.

Performance time is 7:30pm nightly.  Tickets for the concert are $12 for students, $16 for UofSC Faculty/Staff, Military and Seniors, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets are available at the door or by calling 803-777-2551.  Drayton Hall Theatre is located at 1214 College St, across from the historic UofSC Horseshoe.

UofSC Dance welcomes special guest artist Arturo Fernandez, who will present his original contemporary ballet work, Counterpoint (Revisited), for the concert.  In addition to being an in-demand choreographer nationwide, Fernandez is an integral member of San Francisco’s Alonzo King LINES Ballet, serving as the company’s ballet master and assistant to founder Alonzo King in the creation of new work.  Also presenting works for the evening are UofSC Assistant Professors Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, Professor Stephanie Millingand dance instructor Stephanie Wilkins.  Davis is the director for the concert.

Fernandez comes to the University through a connection with Wideman-Davis and Davis.  Wideman-Davis was a company member with Alonzo King LINES when the three met.  “Arturo brings a lot of understanding in a lot of different perspectives on being in the ballet world,” says Davis.  “And he has been a big part of shaping LINES’ perspective on how ballet is done, opening up ballet to a modern dance perspective.”  

“Ballet is his native tongue,” Davis adds.  “And his choreography is very intricate, very detailed, very fast and very physical.  It’s today.”

Davis and Wideman-Davis premiered their original evening-length work Ruptured Silence with their professional company Wideman/Davis Dance at Drayton Hall in December.  Ruptured Silence was an investigation through movement, imagery and text into the presence and impact of racist symbolism in the American South.   

However, for this concert, the two highly regarded choreographers will present works that are purposely lighter in tone.

Davis’ Dizzy Atmosphere, set to the music of jazz legend (and South Carolina native) Dizzy Gillespie, is inspired by the glamour of 1950s theatre.  In creating the work, which he is devising in the studio with the dancers, Thaddeus says he is “taking the lead from the students, letting it become what they are inspired by and not just about me trying to take their dance training forward.  It’s dance for joy’s sake.”

Wideman-Davis’ Disco On My Mind takes its inspiration from the 1970s’ heyday of Studio 54 and Soul Train.  “Again, it’s moving away from social issues for a moment, and just having fun,” says Davis.  “She’s being very specific about the 1970s vibe, how bodies looked and moved, and how people were feeling about themselves in the 1970s culturally.”

Stephanie Milling’s original contemporary work is based upon the writing of feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldúa.  As described by Milling, “Anzaldúa discusses the process of reconciling old ways of knowing with new world views, and the emotional toll that accompanies the development of a new worldview.  The work is an abstract representation of the relationship between self, personal worldview and the world at large.”  Milling is the Head of the dance program’s Dance Education track, and has performed with Dayton Ballet, Berkshire Ballet, and Tressor Dance Company and Contemporary Dance Fort Worth, among other companies.

Stephanie Wilkins’ Ache is described by the choreographer as being “about love…specifically, the kind of love that you only find once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky.”  Wilkins says that the piece finds inspiration in a line from writer Jack Kerouac — “Pain or love or danger makes you real again.”  Wilkins has choreographed extensively in New York, San Francisco and Brazil, and danced for seven years in Columbia’s contemporary dance collective, The Power Company.

For more information on Breaking Boundaries or the dance program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at [email protected].