February 1, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
Lara Hoyt, Coordinator for Public Relations and Alumni Affairs
"DancePlus Spring" at Mason Gross Performing Arts Center New Brunswick, NJ – The Department of Dance at Mason Gross School of the Arts presents works by its renowned faculty choreographers in “DancePlus Spring,” running March 1 through 4 at the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center’s New Theater.
The concert will feature the premiere of Robert Benford’s new body percussion and movement piece, “12 Hands, 12 Feet.” Most of the music for the piece will be produced by the six student dancers as they stamp, clap, and strike their own and each others’ bodies in various ways. An amplified, raised platform will allow the performers to fill the theater with sound.
Benford also created the music for the work to be presented by John Evans, “Farming in Sixes” (1996), which explores the bonds of community and struggle.
Randy James will present two works. In “Susie and Swoozie’s Soiree” (1994), set to music by Tommy Edwards and Tommy Smith, a formal dinner party thrown by two eccentric sisters provides the background for a lighthearted peek at mixed social graces. Guests arriving embarrassingly early or fashionably late set the scene for hilarious interactions. In “A Song for Drowning Clouds” (1993), music by Alan Terricciano sets the tone for an atmospheric solo that begins in a deceptively calm stillness that explodes into a series of stunning violent spins and leaping turns.
In Julia Ritter’s “Bracken Obscures My View” (1997), with music by Tortoise and Mum, three dancers eclipse and overturn one another while attempting to find the common ground between them.
Performances are March 1, 2 and 3 at 8 p.m. and March 4 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 for the general public, $20 for Rutgers employees and alumni and seniors, and $15 for students (advance tickets only). The discounted student price expires two hours prior to curtain. New Theater is in the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center, 85 George Street (between Route 18 and Ryders Lane), on the Douglass College campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
For more information about any Mason Gross event, visit our Web site at www.masongross.rutgers.edu or call the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center ticket office at 732/932-7511.
About DancePlus DancePlus is the semiannual concert of faculty work produced by the Department of Dance of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. The title DancePlus was given to the event for the first time in 1990 when the department was looking for a more attractive name than the previously used “Faculty Dance Concert.” Live music and film were used in the 1990 production, thus giving the faculty the idea of calling it DancePlus, the name associated with the event ever since. Each concert represents the work of four to six faculty members and, frequently including world premieres. When possible the work of a guest choreographer commissioned for University DanceWorks, the student touring dance company, is presented on DancePlus before it is taken to off campus venues for performance. Faculty choreography is most frequently performed by current BFA students, although faculty occasionally use DancePlus to present their professional companies as well as alumni as performers. On occasion, faculty perform their own or each other’s work. When an undergraduate choreographer creates a work of particular merit it is showcased on a DancePlus performance. DancePlus is usually scheduled within the last few weeks of each semester and runs for one weekend twice a year. About Mason Gross School of the Arts Founded in 1976, Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and is home to the departments of dance, music, theater arts, and visual arts. Its faculty and alumni rosters include arts professionals recognized nationally and internationally. The school's enrollment of 625 undergraduates across four departments and 250 graduate students across three departments, combined with a faculty of 140, assures students the opportunity to work closely with accomplished artists within their fields.
About Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey A comprehensive research institution with more than 50,000 students on three main campuses in New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, Rutgers comprises one of the major state university systems in the nation. Chartered in 1766 in New Brunswick as Queen's College, Rutgers is the eighth oldest institution of higher learning in the nation and now comprises 29 degree- granting divisions, including 16 offering graduate programs of study.
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