Dean’s Insider: Celebrating Dance on the Forty Acres
Dear Friends,
This spring, we’re seeing so much incredible energy around dance on campus, from ambitious programming at Texas Performing Arts to engaging creative and scholarly research happening in the Department of Theatre and Dance.
This Saturday, Texas Performing Arts hosts Cullberg — Works by Deborah Hay, an internationally renowned choreographer based right here in Austin. Hay, who is recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-modern dance, was one of Texas Performing Arts’ artists-in-residence this year. Associate Professor of Dance Leah Cox will be moderating the talkbacks after each of the two performances on Saturday.
And our Dance students will perform new works by student and professional choreographers in their spring show EMERGE, opening March 2. Exploring themes of emergence, EMERGE seeks to reflect on history to imagine a way forward, elevating the inventiveness and interconnectivity of moving art forms. The program will also feature the return of the Haruka Weiser Commission, which will be choreographed by Ido Tadmore.
In research news, Associate Professor Rebecca Rossen received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to support her research exploring dance about the Holocaust. Rossen is a dance historian, performance scholar and choreographer, and the grant supports her forthcoming monograph Moving Memories: Holocaust Representation in Contemporary Dance, the first monograph focused on dance about the Holocaust.
As part of my own Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, we’ll be bringing performance artists, including dancemakers, from Puerto Rico to visit campus as part of Performance as Public Practice’s Fridays@2 speaker series.
And we’re just getting started. We have more exciting news brewing around dance in our college, so stay tuned!
Sincerely,
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera Dean, College of Fine Arts
