“Scripps Dances,” the annual spring concert of the Scripps College Dance Department, takes place on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. in the Garrison Theater of the Scripps Performing Arts Center. The program features original dance pieces choreographed by students, faculty, and guest artists.
Tickets will be sold at the Garrison Theater Box Office beginning at 6:00p.m. on performance evenings and 1:00p.m. on Saturday. General admission is $10, and $5 for seniors, Claremont College students, faculty, and staff. Payment is accepted by cash or check only. Doors will open at 7:30p.m. / 1:30p.m. For general concert information call (909) 607-2934.
“Scripps Dances” is the highlight of the dance department’s spring calendar, and features twelve premieres. The Square, choreographed by guest artist and Scripps alumna Molly Rogers, explores a charged landscape of confrontation as a tribute to the legions of peaceful protesters that have taken to the streets this year in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. Scripps junior Alyssa Mello’s solo, a cheaper gravity, is an exercise in the articulation of the momentum and heft of the body, while her thesis work, a dance film entitled Not All Kids Are Afraid of Ghosts, makes use of video, stop-motion animation, and 16mm film as it re-structures the dance choreography. In van der Waals, choreographer Victoria Wolfe (Pz ’12) explores the strength of the weakest of bonds, translating the power of the human body to those molecules which compose it. Annie Johnson’s thesis piece, and she watches herself being watched, explores the dancer’s relationship with the mirror, critically examining the way dancers are seen by others and the way dancers see themselves. Joss Greene’s solo, Trans, – verb, choreographed jointly with Scripps Faculty Suchi Branfman, utilizes the parallels between artistic performance and the everyday surveillance and spectaclization of queer bodies to explore the power dynamics that structure the telling of life stories.
Additional senior thesis projects by Jill Mahoney, Ashli Duncan and Avery Oatman, exploring issues of individuality, aggression and intimacy, plus an Afro-Caribbean inspired dance by Chanté Cruse (Scr ’12) complete the program.