Fall Faculty Dance Concert 2024

Northampton, MA – The Smith College Department of Dance presents the Fall Faculty Dance Concert, featuring the Five College Dance repertory project Spent Days Out Yonder (2000) by Bill T. Jones—heralded as “one of the most notable, recognized modern-dance choreographers and directors of our time,”—and new work by faculty artists Chris Aiken, Shakia “The Key” Barron, Ellie Goudie-Averill, and Laura Grandi. The show runs three nights, November 14, 15, 16 at 8 p.m., in Theatre 14, part of Smith College’s Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available at smitharts.ludus.com.

The Five College Repertory project Spent Days Out Yonder is a quiet, exquisite exploration of Bill T. Jones’ detailed movement initiations and articulations to the loping drops of Mozart's string quartet No. 23 in F major. The piece is a ten-minute excerpt from a larger work titled You Walk? (2000) extracted from an earlier work titled Green and Blue (1997) commissioned by the Lyon Opera Ballet and set to the music of Mozart. The work is being staged for Five College Dance by Jenna Riegel, a former member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College. Riegel describes Spent Days Out Yonder as possessing “a kind of serene beauty, akin to a landscape painting. There is a simultaneous quality of vastness and minuteness.” She adds “In addition, there are subtle funky insinuations as Bill was ‘dancing to Mozart as if listening to James Brown.’” Spent Days Out Yonder was remounted in 2011 and premiered at the American Dance Festival. The piece will also be performed with overlapping casts in Mount Holyoke/Amherst College’s faculty dance concert on Nov 7–9 and UMass Amherst/Hampshire College’s faculty dance concert on Nov 21–23.

The repertory of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft and includes musically driven works as well as works using a variety of texts. Some of its most celebrated creations are evening-length works including Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990); Still/Here (1994); We Set Out Early... Visibility Was Poor (1996); You Walk? (2000); Blind Date (2006); Chapel/Chapter (2006); Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray (2009); Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale (2010); Story/Time (2012); and A Rite (2013).

Bill T. Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), where he studied classical ballet and modern dance. In 1982 he formed the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company with his late partner, Arnie Zane. Mr. Jones is currently artistic director of New York Live Arts, an organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. He has created more than 140 works and been the recipient of dozens of awards including the 2013 National Medal of Arts; 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; 2 Tony Awards, and a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award to name a few. For more information, visit http://www.newyorklivearts.org/.

Jenna Riegel, originally from Fairfield, IA, is a dance artist and educator. Jenna holds an M.F.A. in dance performance from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in theatre arts from Maharishi International University. During her eleven-year performing career in NYC, Jenna toured and performed nationally and internationally as a company member of David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/Dances, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Company, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. She also danced with Daara Dance (choreographer Michel Kouakou), Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Shaneeka Harrell, Tania Isaac Dance, and Johannes Weiland.

In Centering, Chris Aiken directs an ensemble of 11 Smith College undergraduate and graduate dancers in a scored improvised performance work. The dancers will be collaborating on stage with Smith Musician in Dance Jake Meginsky who will create new music for each performance. Through a semester-long process the dancers and musician have developed an evocative real-time composition process that emphasizes the relationship between independent and community-based creative decision-making. Aiken has created a choreographic framework for the dancers to improvise within, similar to a musical score. While the movements will change each night, the dancers have a sense of who will be dancing within each section of the score and the intention behind each section. The ensemble has worked throughout the fall exploring tuning scores designed to orient the ensemble for this performance. Chris Aiken is an internationally recognized performer and teacher of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. He has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists most notably Angie Hauser with whom he has collaborated for over two decades choreographing, directing, and performing internationally. He is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Dance at Smith College.

Chromascope, a ballet for eighteen dancers by Ellie Goudie-Averill, explores the ways in which we find freedom within the structures of society and classical dance. The dance begins with more formality, and then the forms begin to blur in and out of clarity as the dancers fall into momentum and drive. Accompanied by hand-painted analog 16mm film created by filmmaker Tori Lawrence, the piece takes inspiration from mid-century design and the ways in which we strive for a sense of perfection that doesn't and never has existed. Ellie Goudie-Averill is currently working on new projects with Beau Hancock and Barbie Diewald and is a regular collaborator and dancer with Tori Lawrence + Co. in dance films and site-specific works. She teaches ballet and contemporary at Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges and at the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought in Northampton, MA.

In the Street Styles piece Waves, choreographer Shakia “The Key” Barron delves into the concept that every individual holds immense power and depth within. Waves is a tribute to personal histories and the collective strength of the community. With a strong sense of connection and support, the 12 dancers remind us that no one moves alone—each step is a ripple, shaped by those around them. Shakia “The Key” Barron is an accomplished choreographer, performer, and educator specializing in African Diasporic dance forms with a focus on hip-hop, house, and funk styles. She currently holds the position of Class of 1929 Virginia Apgar Assistant Professor of Dance at Mount Holyoke College and serves as the artistic director of Kia the Key & Company. She is currently preparing to showcase her evening-length work, The Gathering, in the summer of 2025, made possible by a Public Art for Spatial Justice Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts.

This year’s faculty concert will include a tango performance featuring the Argentinian dancer Laura Grandi, instructor of tango courses in the Smith Department of Dance, to honor the many years that tango has been part of the curriculum. On Thursday and Friday, Grandi will dance with Marcelo Gutiérrez. On Saturday, her partner will be Marcelo Mesa. The artists will dance to Julio Sosa’s classic tango “Nada,” in a version by the legendary Argentinian singers Mercedes Sosa and María Graña.

The Fall Faculty Dance Concert will be held in Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts, 122 Green Street in Northampton. Tickets are reserved seating, $5 for students and 65+, and $10 for adults. Tickets can be purchased online at https://smitharts.ludus.com or by emailing BoxOffice@smith.edu.