‘Making dance’ brings students, professors in league

Students and faculty in the UW–Madison Dance Program will pool their talents to open the 1998-99 season with a Rededication Concert in honor of Lathrop Hall.

The collaboration will be presented Sept. 24-26 at 8 p.m. in Lathrop Hall’s recently reopened Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space.

According to concert artistic director Li Chiao-Ping, UW–Madison associate professor of dance, the artists drew generously on their individual heritages for the rededication to mirror the university’s sesquicentennial theme of using the past as a resource for the future.

“My colleagues and I worked with our students to create a diverse program,” she says. “Our art, work and relationships all have been influenced significantly by the multiplicity of cultures we each grew up in and have studied.”

Li herself will offer “Untitled,” an exploration of Chinese folktales. The work will feature guest artist Walter Dundervill of the Nai Ni Chen Dance Company and the music of composer Forrest Fang.

Chinese tradition supplies the theme of assistant professor Jin-Wen Yu’s “On Horseback.” Fellow dance professor Claudia Melrose will present a composite of African-based dances, and assistant professor James Sutton will debut and perform in his formal movement study “Edges and Corners.”

Assistant professor Douglas Rosenberg will show his 10-minute video-dance inspired by UW dance alumna Anna Halperin’s experiences watching her grandfather worship in synagogue. Following its Madison premiere, “My Grandfather Dances” will be featured as part of the “Dance on Camera Festival” at Lincoln Center in December.

Tickets for the Lathrop Hall Rededication Concert are $12 for general admission, and $10 for students and seniors. They are available in advance from the Wisconsin Union Theater box office in the Memorial Union; remaining tickets will be sold at the door beginning an hour before the performance.

A reception will follow the Sept. 26 performance in the Virginia F. Harrison Parlor on Lathrop Hall’s first floor. For more information, contact the UW–Madison dance program office, (608) 262-1691.