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Nov. ltl, unit—pogo 12

 

Modern dance arrives

with BillEvans

by Lorri Lohinaun

This week, Bill Evans and his
dance company have delighted
Grim-tell dancers with their own
brand of modern dance. Not only
are Grinnellians able to observe
the company, but they have also
had an opportunity to dance with
the inrresidence troupe.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday, Grinnellians were given
the chance to dance. Each member
or the dance company, including
Bill Evans, offered dance and
movement workshops for students,
vigorous modern dance technique
classes were taught at beginning,
intermediate and advanced levels
and jazz technique at the in
termediate level. '

THE TROUPE CONDUCTED

musicians to provide music for
classes.

THE LIVE accompaniment is
needed SO that students learn to
work with music. It also fosters the
spontaneity unique to this type or
dance, Evans says most small
schools and some universities with
dance programs don't recognize
the importance at live music.
Untortunately the company will
dance here to taped music.

Grinnell High School students
saw a demonstration given by the
company on Monday, made
possible by the Iowa Fine Arts
Council who paid part oi the
group's fee,

The dance group was slightly
disappointed in the students'
reaction to them because Evans

The dances are

'deceptively complex.’

theatre workshops: Movement for
Actors, Composition..-
lmprovisation and Lighting
Workshop. The workshops in;
volved a lot oi imagination and
use of the body as well as words to
communicate an idea, ‘

Evans says the label “modern
dance" tells people more what his
works aren’t (ballet) than what
they are (American theatrical
dance). Evans calls his dances
“deceptively complex": he hopes
they appear “organic, natural and
tree" to his audience but they take
a lot of work and attention to detail
to achieve this natural effect.

ON TOUR HIS company uses
minimal production, and lighting is
the essential stage tool. At home in
Seattle the performances tend to
be more elaborately staged.

Evans stresses the need for live
muSic in pertormances and even in

"classes. His. Seattle jsum‘merf,

:progra' 'em‘ploys 7.1.?”

says they “ordinarily have great
success" with high school
audiences. He termed their
response as “ambiguous" and
attributed it to the fact that the
whole student body attended in-
stead ol only those who were in-
terested.

HOWEVER, THEY were “very
intrigued" by the improvisational
sequence. Each dancer created
his-her own movement phrase and
taught it til the others. Then they
joined all the phrases ot movement
together and recombined them in
dierrent orders.

In all, the company has eleven
members and three apprentice
members. Six are here: Bill
Evans, Gregg Lizenbery, Shirley
Jenkins, Daphne Lowell, Regina
DeCosse and Erik Whitmyre. They
have all been Evans’s students for
,many, ,yea , Ha. empathy,
requiremen. Evans feels he

iPholos by Karl Dukslei l

“couldn‘t hire a dancer trained in
the traditional way.”

BILL EVANS IS a dancer
choreographer, teacher and
director of the dance company and
Dance Theatre Seattle School. He
received his training at the
University at Utah where he
earned bachelors degrees in
English and ballet and a master in
line arts in modern dance.

He taught dance for two years
there, from 1974 to 1976, but
became disillusioned with
what was happening at state
universities. He felt there was an
“unhealthy giving in to whim”7
too much emphasis was placed on
”making students happy." This is,
he believes, in conﬂict with the
discipline of dance because “in art
one has to proceed from the inside
out.”

Evans has received numerous
honors including a Guggenheim
Fellowship for choreography, a
choreographic Fellowship and a
Production Grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts-
for the creation of a new work. He
is alsoa movementspecialist in the
Arts Endowment's Artist-inc
Schools Program which means
that he teaches creative movement
to children. He spends two weeks
at a time at a public grade school
working with youngsters. He says
it is the hardest work he does, but
also “the most rewarding when it
goes well.”

IN ADDITION t0 the dance
company in Seattle, Bill Evans
also has a dance school. The
school’s main program is 'the
Seattle Summer Institute of Dance.
Approximately 250 dancers study
full~time and 100 part-time during
the summer. Throughout the
remainder of the year there are 150
dance Students, mostly in their mid
20’s, enrolled in the school »

The school. according to Evans,
isn’t making any money. in {act it
was in the red the first two years,
Serious dance students usually
don't have much money so the
sqhool isn’t_operating to make a

TOURING IS more profitable.
Six months of this year the Evans
company will be on tour. The cost
for the company's performance or
residency is shared by the local
sponsor, the state fine arts council,
and the lederal government, each
paying a third. ..

The group tours under the
auspices or the Dance Touring
Program which requires a two
andrarhali day minimum
residency. The dancers’ week in
Grinnell is a longer stay than
usual. Alter Grinnell, the troupe
will travel to Colorado State
University, the University of North
Colorado, the University of Utah
and Westminster College in Salt
Lake city.

Friday and Saturday nights’
periormances In Roberts Theatre
will consist of five works, the
middle dances differing~ each
night, The concert will begin with
live traditional military marches
and close with a dance to East
Indian drums,

DEPENDING 0N which night
you go you‘ll also see dance in
terpretations to Scott Joplin piano
rags, Bach music on the guitar. a
quartet by Boston composer

profit,_charging only enough to,‘ I '

break ‘ev'en.’

 

Harold Shapiro and a score
commissioned by Evans and
pertormcd by the Northwest
Chamber Orchestra called
“Willow Bay.” Despite the ex-
pense, Evans tries to commission
an original score every other year,

in ma, Evans got his [irst
taste of Grinnell at the Iowa
Dance Council's summer
workshop, The dancers took over
the campus for what was “one of
the most intense weeks" of dance
he ever experienced. Babe
Voertman, lecturer in theatre, was
one of the officers oi the council so
they met here and have been
friends since.

Evans says that every place he
goes has a particular style and
that, though he’ll know more by the
end of the week, he finds the
students here “extraordinarily laid
back” and “understated." He is
enjoying the “quiet and clean”
small town atmosphere, but
wonders if those of us from cities
don't suffer from culture shock

The Bill Evans Dance Corns
pany's periormances this weekend
should be quite a tinale to a long
week of dance, the first week of its
kind at Grinnell.

 

