Dancers seek bright lights of downtown stage

Waaaaaaaah. Waaaaaah. Waaah. The horn blares its call and the dancers respond. Necks roll. Shoulders twitch. Hips wiggle. Knees bend. And feet begin to fly.

As the late afternoon sun seeped into Sullivant Hall's studio 1 recently, 13 student dancers energetically dove headlong into Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's sexy and swinging arrangement of the "Peer Gynt Suites, Nos. 1 & 2." The men and women crossed the floor in ever-shifting combinations, single and paired, in groups of three and six, each dancer putting his or her personal stamp on the ensemble's enveloping dance.

The spectacle will sashay downtown to the Riffe Center's Capitol Theatre March 2-4 for OSUDance Downtown, a big, big, big dance-a-paloooza. Forty-four dancers will perform in new works by New York choreographer Tere O'Connor and Ohio State Department of Dance faculty Victoria Uris and Susan Hadley, and in a restaging of a work by Ohio State alumna Senta Driver.

By Jo McCulty

MFA students rehearse for "Go On," choreographed by Associate Professor of Dance Susan Hadley. The piece is one of four to be performed in OSUDance Downtown March 2-4.

The downtown performance is a first for the department, marking a departure from past years when the now-disbanded University Dance Company would perform its annual spring concert on either the Mershon or Sullivant Hall stages.

"The size of this concert is enormous. The scope is much larger. We have more dancers and longer pieces," said Stacy Reischman, lecturer of dance and producer of the concert.

"We wanted to include more students and move ourselves more into the community, hopefully capturing a different crowd than what we attract to the campus," Reischman said. "It's a great opportunity for the students to perform in a big theater. It goes toward a degree of professionalism we can't always achieve here."

Uris, who choreographed the Ellington piece, "Savoy Fare," was excited to be able to think big for the dance. "I love a big stage," she said, "so I was very happy we'd have the nice rectangular space of the Capitol to work with."

The dance, which will be accompanied live by the OSU Jazz Ensemble, directed by Ted McDaniel, draws from a lot of sources.

"There is a lot of Harlem Renaissance influence in it -- not just dance, but all of the arts," Uris said. Viewers will see flashes back to the age of Lindy hoppers, Josephine Baker and Cab Calloway.

Uris said the piece charted new territory for her as a choreographer of modern dance. "I feel I'm bringing so much material to this piece from (Broadway) show dancing, dance clubs and the dancers themselves. It's been great and fun to work with a new vocabulary."

Her dancers enjoyed the style. "The choreography has allowed us to put our own color and layer on things. It has been really cool to see what it has grown into," said senior dance student Philip Meiring.

"Everyone here is so different and this piece really enhances everyone's own way of moving. I think that's what makes this piece really sparkle," added Romnee Hayes, a senior dance student.

Hadley's piece, "Go On," also places an emphasis on the individual. Her dancers are all MFA students specializing in performance. Their participation in this concert is part of a course they are taking on the nature of performance.

"My aim was to have them explore themselves as performers and what each one of them brought to the performance," Hadley said. "The piece is casual and is somewhat of a romp. By the end it allows us to get to know the dancers. It's really about them and their idiosyncrasies."

The dance is set to blues guitar and vocals recorded by Scott Ainslie. "There's a lot of images in blues music about moving on, journeying and traveling. The dance really references this motif so prevalent in the blues traditions," Hadley said.

Driver's piece, "Resettings," is being restaged for the first time. "Senta Driver originally did this dance on a ballet company in 1981," Reischman said. Reischman read the entire dance from the score, notated in Labanotation, a system for describing and recording movement developed in the 1920s by Rudolph Laban.

Driver came to campus three weeks ago to check the dance, which features 15 students and runs for 27 minutes. "Every time a work is restaged, someone -- the choreographer or someone she has appointed -- has to come in and check it," Reischman said. Reischman is now qualified to check the work if it is reconstructed again.

"Resettings" is loosely based on the story of "La Sylphide," a 19th-century romantic ballet. "It is a ballet story, but not a ballet," Reischman said. "It has a formal and an abstract side to it." There is no accompanying music. "Most of it is in silence. The cast hums, talks, sings and taps feet, so they provide the score."

Pop songs will be deconstructed for "Life Song," choreographed by O'Connor, who was a visiting artist at Ohio State during fall quarter. "He set it in 10 weeks and they are still working on it," Reischman said. "He'll come back for tech rehearsals."

Lisa Moran, an MFA student, is coaching the 11 dancers. O'Connor, a Bessie Award winner who heads a New York dance company, composed original music for the work with Columbus composer Brian Casey.

Lighting for "Resettings" and "Savoy Fare" is being designed by David Covey, associate professor of dance and a 1998 recipient of a Bessie Award for lighting design. Lighting design for "Go On" was created by John Bohuslawksy, lecturer of dance, and for "Life Song" by MFA student Greg Catellier.

Covey said he would wait until he could work with the dancers on stage before developing a design plan. "A lot of lighting comes from seeing how the movement interacts with the lighting. There is no preconceived notion. I let the lights talk to me when I work," Covey said.

For "Savoy Fare," he said there will be "a lot of pretty drastic changes with color within the sections of music to go with a surreal feeling." For "Resettings," he will be "more open and neutral with color. The movement is so physically strong, I'll try to highlight that with a white light."

Like his colleagues, Covey is pleased the concert will be held in the 700-seat Capitol Theatre.

"The work is incredibly strong. It's important to get downtown. Our work is as strong as any of the professional stuff that is brought into Columbus. It's professional on every level," he said.

Input for costume and set design is being provided by StudioLuscious of Columbus. Midwestern Auto Group is providing major funding for the concert.

Tickets for the March 2-4 performances of OSUDance Downtown are $10-$15. They are available through CAPA, 469-0939, Ticketmaster outlets, 431-3600, or the Wexner Center box office, 292-3535. For more information, check the Web site, http://dance.ohio-state.edu/downtown/.