Three guest choreographers are joining faculty members and a cast of talented students to present this year’s Fall Dance Concert at the Toni and Martin Sosnoff Theater at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse, Nov. 30-Dec. 3.
Show times are 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. on Saturday; and 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Tickets are $10; $8 for senior citizens (over 65) or matriculated, non-Hofstra students with I.D. Members of the Hofstra community may receive up to two free tickets upon presentation of a current HofstraCard. For tickets call the Hofstra Box Office at 516-463-6644 Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-3:45 p.m. or purchase online at Hofstratickets.com. If available, tickets will also be sold at the door starting 90 minutes prior to show time.
Guest choreographers include Robert (Tigger) Benford and Martha Partridge; Hofstra alumnus Larry Keigwin; and Claire Porter. Hofstra faculty choreographers are Amy Marshall, Fritzlyn Hector and Colin Stilwell.
About the guest choreographers:
Robert (Tigger) Benford is a percussionist, composer and improviser, specializing in hand drumming and music for modern dance. Martha Partridge is a former dancer, dance teacher and choreographer who, more recently, became a body worker specializing in the treatment of Parkinson’s patients.
As the artistic directors of Partridge/Benford/Dance/Music, Partridge and Benford created many collaborative pieces, which were performed across the U.S. in venues including the Joyce Theater, the New Victory Theatre, the Duke on 42nd Street, the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Ohio University and Rutgers University. Partridge was on faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts as well as the Limon School for many years. Benford recently retired after a long career as an Associate Professor in the Dance Department at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Larry Keigwin ’94 is a native New Yorker and choreographer who has danced his way from the Metropolitan Opera to downtown clubs to Broadway and back. He was awarded a “Bessie” in 1998 as a performer in Mark Dendy’s Dream Analysis and founded Keigwin + Company in 2003. As the artistic director of K + C, Keigwin has led the company as it has performed at theaters and dance festivals throughout New York City and around the world. In March 2017, the company traveled to Africa for a four-week tour and residency co-sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In September 2017 Keigwin was honored with an Alumni Achievement Award from Hofstra.
Claire Porter of Claire Porter/PORTABLES is a writer, dancer and choreographer whose work has been performed nationally and internationally at venues including New York Live Arts, the Joyce Theater, American Dance Festival, Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Porter is a Guggenheim Fellow (2013) and has received National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowships and Mid-Atlantic Choreography Fellowships. She has led two professional development workshops in Laban Motif Writing for the dance education and physical education majors at Hofstra. This is her second Junior Repertory piece commissioned by the Dance Program.
The Fall Concert dances include:
Quadrabox is a body percussion and movement quartet, in which the performers are both movers and musicians. The piece was created by Partridge (choreographer) and Benford (composer).
The piece uses a lot of asymmetrical phrase structures inspired by Indian drumming. It premiered in 1991 at Denison College in Ohio, and has been performed many times through the years by many groups of performers.
Askew was choreographed by Professor Marshall. This piece explores the dynamics of group relationships in social situations.
The cast of 10 dancers splits into two groups confronting one another as each side vies to prove their loyalty and honor. Throughout the dance people shift from one side to the other, or one against all or two against the group, which so often occurs in everyday life.
Love and Aversion by Professor Hector, was created on half of the junior class of Hofstra Dance majors. It features a mélange of urban and contemporary dance styles and reveals alternating struggles of self-love and self-loathing that people deal with in the journey of their lives.
Measured Manners, by Porter, was created for the other half of Hofstra’s class of juniors. With choreographic contributions from the dancers, this piece reveals a gamely romp of manners through text, whistles and correct behavior.
Through Form and Momentum is a new work choreographed by Hofstra faculty member Colin Stilwell. Its tempered design reveals vibrant momentum in an energetic dance for 10, inspired by the art of Jackson Pollock.
The Hunt is a new dance created by Larry Keigwin in collaboration with the students of the Hofstra Dance Department. It is an electrifying, high-octane dance that takes a look at the juxtaposition between animal behavior and human behavior.
Set to a pulsating score, this athletic dance explores predatory ideas, the chase, and the pursuit of dreams, to highlight similarities between the animal kingdom and our human community.
