FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sarah Snyder
ssnyder3@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151
November 27, 2012 – College Park, MD – Dance Exchange delves into the dance-making experience on December 10 and 11 at 7 p.m. in Straight to the Source. In this special two-part event, Dance Exchange Artistic Director Cassie Meador and Resident Artist Sarah Levitt will collaborate with participants to create movement, text and song drawn from personal stories, current events and physical explorations.
Meador, Levitt and Dance Exchange resident artists will share their methods for generating and crafting material in creating these multi-disciplinary performance works.
The December 10 event will include a performance of excerpts from two Dance Exchange works followed by a movement workshop with the company. The performance is open to the public with no advance reservations required. Participants in the movement workshop will register in advance and commit to both Part I on December 10 and Part II on December 11. Trained dancers as well as those who have never danced before are welcome to both the performance and movement workshop.
About Straight to the Source
Part 1 of Straight to the Source will include an informal showing of Cassie Meador's "How to Lose a Mountain" and Sarah Levitt’s “Ground Loss.” “How to Lose a Mountain” which focuses on a 500-mile walk Meador and the company took last spring between Meador's home in Washington, DC, and a strip mining site in West Virginia. Through movement, text and song, the piece questions what we gain and what we lose through the continual use of our natural resources. “Ground Loss” explores what happens to the body when politics, scientific principles, religion and other people prove to be unreliable. When the ground underneath of us gives out, what do we have left to stand on?
After the informal showing, Dance Exchange will conduct a participatory workshop centered on the creative process, culminating in the creation of short solo and group dances. Part 2 of Straight to the Source on December 11 will dig deeper into the process of generating and crafting movement. Participants will perform the work created in Part 1 and discuss the process of the piece.
About Dance Exchange
Dance Exchange breaks boundaries between stage and audience, theater and community, movement and language, tradition and the unexplored. Founded in 1976 by Liz Lerman and now under the artistic direction of Cassie Meador, Dance Exchange stretches the range of contemporary dance through explosive dancing, personal stories, humor, and a company of performers whose ages span six decades. The work consists of concerts, interactive performances, community residencies, and professional training in community-based dance.
Tickets
More information can be found on our web site. The performance on December 10 is FREE. Advanced registration for the movement workshops on December 10 and 11 is required. Please register here.
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The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Learn more about the Clarice Smith Center's donor support.