Facebook

A friendly reminder to join us on Facebook as well:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=6512155865

We want to stay connected with you!

-Dana

Please tell your friends

Hi Everyone,

We are working away trying to reconnect with as many of our wonderful Alumni as possible. Please tell your friends to check in here at the blog so we can update their information. I would love to catch up with everyone.

Dana

Bld. J needs our help

Dear Friends of Theatre and Dance at GWU,

I need to ask for your assistance. As you know I LOVE Building J-our dance designated building in the heart of the main campus. It is an historic building which was actually a carriage house in the 1800's. This building is an incubator for dance, it has launched the careers of so many of our alumni, mine included! J has housed the creative processes of countless students; nurturing their concepts all the way to performance. I have so many fond memories of working in J: swinging on the odd structural bar in J up, rolling on the floor in J down, sweating profusely during class in the winter, running around folding chairs creating spacial designs, trying to find proper released hip alignment and looking for the illusive arabesque. Over 15 years ago, when I was a graduate student at GWU, I witnessed the student choreographies of Vincent Caccialano, Stacy Palatt, Heidi Rauch, and Heather Pultz. Years later as a professor of dance I proudly watched the evolving aesthetics of Mary Lane, Jennifer Caulk, Sarah Halzack, and Jadee Mitchell among others. Well, I know all our dance alumni have a fabulous cadre of stories to tell involving Bld. J. Some stories are filled with choreographic dilemmnas, while others have uproarous stories of joyous laughter. Well, as this fall semester quickly approaches, Bld. J needs our help. After all that work, it needs a serious face lift! We desperately need to sand and repaint. The past few seasons of damp, humid DC weather have taken their toll. We need to raise 6800.00 in order to be up and running by the end of August for classes. Jennifer Caulk who started our Dance Alumni Organization (DAO) has pledged 1700.00 from DAO to assist. What a fabulous generous donation! DAO has jump started our goal and given us hope. But we are only part way there with time ticking! I ask our alumni who are filled with as much love for J as I have to assist me in raising funds quickly. We need to keep the tradition alive and get J ready for yet another class of Freshman this fall. Will you send TRDA a personal donation made out to "GWU" our TRDA alumni organization with a note designating "for Bld. J/CAST"? Our address is 800 21st Street, NW, rm 227, Washington, DC 20052. You can also donate on-line but remember to designate your donation to TRDA and Bld. J specifically.
https://www.gwu.edu/online_giving/

Your donation is tax-deductible under the full extent of the law and what a wonderful feeling it will be to give back to dance at GWU. Please give what you can as soon as you can. I want to personally thank you for believing in the power of dance as a transformative art form and for helping us continue to house this precious performing art on campus. Please contact me with any questions you may have.

Warmest,
Dana dtsb@gwu.edu

Snippet from Smithsonian show

Hello all, hope the summer is going well. Thought I would share the media piece from the Smithsonian show at the National Museum of the American Indian that Carmen and I worked on. Enjoy.

Valerie St. Pierre Smith

ParisModernism2009 Blog

Professor Mary Buckley sends us this link to her Study Abroad blog: Paris: Modernism and the Arts, then and now

Definitely check this out.

Our alumni are everywhere!

Today after the AAC&U conference meetings we headed out to investigate Philly. Near this beautiful public art installation on South Street, we bumped into our favorite alumni dance couple Joe and Amber Lee! How wonderful to see them today! Our alumni are everywhere and thriving! Dana

Hi Everyone, We are so excited about Jodi Kantar's new DC show! Please come join us! Dana

http://thegirlwhowatersthebasil.blogspot.com/

News from Philly!

Hello Everyone, I am currently at the Association of American Colleges and Universities' "Engaging Departments Institute" in Philadelphia. I am in attendance with Dean Paul Duff, as well as with professors, Doug Boyce, Elizabeth Chacko and Heather Schell. It has been wonderful to meet with my colleagues and to expand the breadth of my understanding of academic leadership and educational assessments. I look forward to sharing this information with our TRDA faculty and students soon!

Sincerely, Dana

Pina Bausch

In my job at The Washington Post, I'm occasionally able to put both of my GW majors--dance and journalism--to work at the same time.

Yesterday was one of those days, when news broke that groundbreaking German choreographer Pina Bausch had passed away. For many famous people, obituaries are written in advance of their death to avoid a scramble when it does eventually happen. However, the Post had nothing prepared for Bausch. While I've written performances reviews for the Style section and a performance preview for the Weekend section, I had never written a choreographer's obituary before (or any obituary, for that matter!). It was a great challenge. I had to delve into her biography and boil it down, identifying the most important aspects of her character and her work to highlight...and I only had a single afternoon to do it.

As soon as I found out I'd be tackling the story, I can honestly say a couple of my experiences at GW immediately lept to mind! I remembered talking about Bausch's company Tanztheater Wuppertal in Mary Buckley's Dance History class. We talked about the "tanztheater" style and the Ausdruckstanz movement that preceded and influenced it. I remember Maida Withers describing and fondly recalling Bausch's "Rite of Spring" in our Trends in Performance Art class. Without a doubt, my experience in those classes helped me put Bausch's career and her contributions to the field in context. I don't think I could've done this piece without them! –Sarah Halzack

To check out the final product, click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063003986.html

Master Classes in Peru

As a dancer with Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co., I recently had the opportunity to spend almost two weeks in Cusco and Lima, Peru, where we performed and taught master classes. This was my second time visiting Peru with the company since I joined, and it is definitely starting to feel like an artistic home-away-from-home for us.

The tour was a great success. Our performance was well-attended in Cusco and each of our performances in Lima was sold out with would-be audience members turned away at the door. Particularly in Lima, the audience seemed very engaged and open. It is so fun to perform for an audience when you really get the sense that they are so supportive and invested in the performance. I find it makes me dance harder and commit even more to my character.

That said, being on tour is never without its challenges. Many of us struggled to adjust to the high altitude in Cusco. I certainly noticed that in certain sections of the choreography where I didn't usually feel particularly tired, I was suddenly feeling like I was gasping for breath! I also got a stomach bug while I was there and had to take care to rest and pace myself so I could resume performing. It's just a reminder that no matter what happens, you've got to roll with the punches and be as professional as you can!

One of the things I loved most about this trip and others I have taken with the company to Mexico and Egypt is the opportunity to meet new people. From the students who took our master classes to the Peruvians who assisted our stage crew, we made some new friends and as all of us did our best to speak each other's language. We also got to meet Linda Gonzales, the cultural attache, who was so warm and welcoming.

We had time to explore the country a bit, too. Of all the sightseeing we did, I was most excited to visit Machu Picchu. The ruins are really incredible and the Andes are even more massive and majestic than I could've imagined. We also visited churches, museums, the Pacific Ocean, and more than our fair share of souvenir shops.

After a whirlwind trip, we're now back in D.C. and on a brief break. We'll resume rehearsal in August, when we'll ramp up our preparation for our October performance at Dance Place. With a brand new work on the program (a piece called "Island," that tells the story of Chinese immigrants trapped at Angel Island and employs some pretty neat new multimedia elements), we're going to have our work cut out for us!
–Sarah Halzack