UW-Milwaukee Dancers Provide New ‘Insight’

Our community needs young artists to show us withcandor their sense of our time, and to grapple with formal traditions andinvent new styles. So the Dance Department of UW-Milwaukee’s Peck Schoolof the Arts is providing a vital service with New Dancemakers: Insight,twoprograms of rigorously developed choreography on the subject of identity bysenior dance majors.

Co-Artistic Director Luc Vanier wants to fight thenotion that dances are choreographed by on-the-spot inspiration. The 12students selected to develop and present dances submitted detailed proposalslast spring, spent the summer doing research, then worked all semester, withfeedback from faculty and guest professionals, to create personal andartistically self-defining compositions. Co-Artistic Director Seth Warren-Crow,a composer and sound designer, guided their choices of music, much of which wasstudent-composed specifically for these dances.

Two of the pieces have been entered into theAmerican College Dance Festival’s national competition: Leandra Renaa Williams’Route 60 is about the effects ofyears of taking the city bus to school, and Mary-Elizabeth Fenn’s Sibling Rivalry addresses the impact ofsiblings on self-identification.

NewDancemakers: Insight will be presented Dec. 10-13 in Studio 254 of UWM’s Mitchell Hall, 3203 N. Downer Ave. Two programs (A andB) will alternate start times of 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., except on Sunday when thestart times are 2 and 4 p.m. Seating is limited and reservations are stronglyrecommended. Call the Peck School of the Arts BoxOffice at (414) 229-4308.