Photo: CalArts

The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at California Institute of the Arts will present its annual winter concert featuring choreography by faculty and acclaimed guest artists on Dec. 10 and 11 at the Walt Disney Modular Theater.

This year’s concert celebrates the extraordinary range of dance with world premieres by alumna and Beijing Dance Theater Artistic Director Yuanyuan Wang, and faculty Rosanna Gamson, director of Rosanna Gamson/World Wide; along with a special adaption of Cubicle from the repertoire of Diavolo | Architecture in Motion. Cubicle is choreographed by Leonardo Damasco Jr. Alumnus Jacques Heim is Diavolo’s artistic director.

Performances are on Dec. 10 and 11, at 8 pm, in the Walt Disney Modular Theater on the CalArts campus, and Dec. 18 and 19, at 8:30 pm, at REDCAT, Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater, located in downtown Los Angeles.

The concert demonstrates how CalArts has influenced contemporary dance through the work of world-class dance companies led by faculty and alumni directors.

Yuanyuan Wang is one of China’s leading modern dance choreographers. She prides herself on being rooted in Chinese traditions while at the same time producing innovative, authentic, and thoughtful contemporary dance works for the world stage.

In 2008, she founded the Beijing Dance Theater together with visual artists Tan Shaoyuan and Han Jiang. For the concert, Wang is premiering the piece Poison I.

Founded 23 years ago by Jacques Heim, DIAVOLO | Architecture in Motion uses dance to explore the relationship between the human body and its architectural environment. Set in an abstract corporate environment, Cubicle explores the human condition under cramped control and a monotonous reality, exposing an underlying counterbalance between freedom and anarchy in the workplace.

ROSANNA GAMSON/WORLD WIDE has created bi-national collaborative projects in Poland and Mexico, toured in North America since 2000, and has been presented and commissioned by museums, theaters, festivals and alternative performance spaces. For the concert, Gamson investigates the connection between dreaming and improvisation. Her piece for five dancers was created in collaboration with award-winning lighting designer and School of Theater faculty Anne Militello. In Gamson’s dance triptych, light and dark become metaphors for intimacy and disconnection as the extreme physicality of the dancing spills across the shifting landscapes of Militello’s design.

More Information:

Yuanyuan Wang
http://en.beijingdancetheater.org/artists/8/8.html

Rosanna Gamson
http://www.rosannagamsonworldwide.org/about/

Jacques Heim
http://www.diavolo.org/people/jacques-heim/

Anne Militello
http://vortexlighting.com/anne-militello/

The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance is one of the nation’s premiere colleges for the professional training of contemporary dance artists. Technical excellence and innovative artistry are the hallmarks of the undergraduate and graduate programs. Concentrated production seasons of aesthetically diverse work thrive in an atmosphere of creative exchange between professionally motivated students and a faculty of practicing artists. Personal creativity combined with mastery of traditional and contemporary styles prepare students for exciting careers in the field of dance.

Ranked as America’s top college for students in the arts by Newsweek/The Daily Beast, California Institute of the Arts has set the pace for educating professional artists since 1970. Offering rigorous undergraduate and graduate degree programs through six schools–Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater–CalArts has championed creative excellence, critical reflection, and the development of new forms and expressions. As successive generations of faculty and alumni have helped shape the landscape of contemporary arts, the Institute first envisioned by Walt Disney encompasses a vibrant, eclectic community with global reach, inviting experimentation, independent inquiry, and active collaboration and exchange among artists, artistic disciplines and cultural traditions.