The Department of Dance at Case Western Reserve University will kick off the 2014-15 season with “Horizons,” a collection of new and revisited dance works opening Oct. 31.
Performance dates and times are Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 6, 7, 8 at 8 p.m., and Nov. 2 at 2:30 p.m. All performances are at Mather Dance Center.
The program includes Mark Morris’ “Canonic 3/4 Studies” and Pascal Rioult’s “Black Diamond,” two works featured during the 2013-14 season. It also debuts three dances choreographed by faculty Karen Potter, Gary Galbraith and Shannon Sterne.
University graduate and undergraduate dancers will perform “Canonic 3/4 Studies” by Morris, an internationally acclaimed choreographer and founder of the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980.
The New Yorker has described Morris as “undeviating in his devotion to music.” Set to various piano waltzes arranged by Harriet Cavalli and performed by pianist Karin Tooley, “Canonic 3/4 Studies” began as an exploration in working with three-quarter time.
A Boston Globe review said the work “shows how a waltz can smack you in the face, causing you to keel over and how it’s just as useful for staggering as for swooning.”
“Canonic 3/4 Studies” premiered at CWRU in 2013, following a weeklong residency with Sam Black, a dancer with Mark Morris Dance Group since 2005. Black returns this fall to coach the dancers as they prepare to perform the work again.
Rioult’s “Black Diamond” also returns to the Mather Dance Center stage with a new cast. The work is an abstract duet for two female dancers set to Igor Stravinsky’s “Duo Concertant” and will be performed by third-year graduate student Hannah Barna and undergraduate dance major Karlie Budge.
The phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is at the core of “Islands of Desire,” a duet choreographed by Galbraith with music by Telefon Tel Aviv that explores the travails of a couple who long to reconnect but are hampered by the ever-present multimedia that infuses the lovers’ personal space.
“Ecesis” is a 17-minute work choreographed by Sterne and set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor.” The third movement was created as a quintet that premiered at the San Diego International Fringe Festival this past July. Sterne has expanded the choreography to include all three movements of the concerto for a cast of 15 undergraduate students.
Tickets (cash or check only) are available at the door and are $7 for students, $10 for senior citizens and university staff members, and $15 for general admission. Student discounts are not available for the Nov. 8 performance.
Reservations are recommended. Call 216.368.5246 or go online at dance.case.edu/reservations.