Dance as Civic Duty Lecture Series

The dates below are subject to change. You should contact anna.scott@ucr.edu to confirm the event 2 days prior.

Dance As Civic Duty
Dancing to shift social discourse has made a comeback; even if there aren't enough stages on which to do it or audience members to pay to see it. With the current economic challenge, dancing is ever more a diverison of choice (it is free, you can move your body how ever, whenever and practically wherever you want) while dance companies are beginning to fail. Taking their signal from the dissipating audience, dance makers, producers and promoters are putting up shows in innovative locales, using current topics, pick up dancers, and often, web 2.0 strategies to reinvigorate their practice and speak to the task at hand: making an open society. Civically minded, this mode of production seems to have the potential to impact policy making with regards to shifts in demographics, urban redevelopment, K-12 education strategies and even international cultural exchange. Remember that? Dancing to save people, places, and things is not so far fetched as it might seem. This quarter the Department of Dance welcomes a series of performer-scholars, activist-performers, producers and promoters to explore the idea of dance as a necessary component in the restructuring of our sociopolitical landscape. All talks are free and open to the public and unless otherwise noted, located in PE 102 on Tuesdays at 4:10 PM


Tuesday, January 20th, 4:15 - 5:30 Joe Goode is a choreographer, writer, and director whose first concern as an artist is to provide a "deeply felt, profoundly human experience" in the theater. He is widely known as an innovator in the field of dance for his willingness to collide movement with spoken word, song, and visual imagery.

Tuesday January 27th Victoria Marks creates dances for the stage, for film and in community settings. Mark' recent work has considered the politics of citizenship, as well as the representation of both virtuosity and disability. These themes are part of her ongoing commitment to locating dance-making within the sphere of political meaning. Marks is a Professor of choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA where she has been teaching since 1995.

Wednesday February 18th, 1:10 - 2:30 Stephan Koplowitz is an award winning director/choreographer/media artist internationally known for his work on the concert stage and for creating original site-specific multi-media works for architecturally significant sites. His site work aims to alter people's perspectives of place, site, and scale, all infused with a sense of the human condition. He is the Dean of Dance of the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts.

Tuesday February 24th Meg Wolfe is a choreographer & performer, organizer & instigator of Show Box projects, including: the tri-annual dance journal, "itch"; the Anatomy Riot performance series; and DANCEbank, a roving dance class that marauds across the Los Angeles landscape with different instructors every three weeks.

Tuesday March 3, Michael Sakamoto creates interdisciplinary performances in butoh-based dance theater and contemporary theater as well as photography, installation, and media art. Drawing on influences as diverse as the dark, visceral physicality of butoh, the weighted presence and minimalism of Zen, and pop culture from around the globe, his works express a subversive yet benevolent multiculturalism caught within an absurdist east/west dialectic.


TBA/Confirmed
Shakina Nayfeck is a recent MFA in Experimental Choreography from UCR. His rock opera Junk, will open on May 11th in the Zipper Factory in New York City.


California Lawyers for the Arts The mission of California Lawyers for the Arts is to establish a bridge between the arts and the legal communities so that:

A. Artists and art groups may gain greater competence in handling legal and business aspects of their creative activities;

B. The legal profession may become more aware of and involved in issues affecting artists and the arts community and,

C. The law may become more responsive to the needs and interests of the arts community.