ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
Contemporary Dance Concert

Directed by Shawn Womack
Choreography by Susan Warden and Shawn Womack
Lighting Design by Kris Broderson

home | backstage | onstage | productions | 2003-2004 | grinnell college

Roberts Theatre, April 16-17, 8 p.m.


photo: Kat Pickens '07

This concert features new and recent choreography by guest artist Susan Warden and faculty member Shawn Womack. Performers include the Grinnell Dance Troupe and guest performers. The entire program consists of three dances and is about one hour in length.

Susan Warden’s Constellation, first created for the University of Missouri at Kansas City, is evocative of the night sky. Six dancers seamlessly move through intricately choreographed patterns calling for a heightened awareness of ensemble. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh articulates this interdependence: “…I think the word ‘inter-be’ should be in the dictionary. ‘To be’ is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing.”

After Falling, the second piece, is a re-staging of a work created in 1989 for Shawn Womack’s Cincinnati-based dance company and plays with the physical act of falling as metaphor for personal relationships in flux. It is performed to the adagio movement of American composer George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3.

Completing the program will be the premiere of Womack’s Arrivals and Departures, a kinetic rendering of the airport that interweaves sprinting, break dancing, weather reports, skateboarding, baggage handling and shoe searching in a danced montage.

Both Warden and Womack have been recognized as choreographers with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Each founded and directed their own dance companies - Susan Warden & Dancers in Kansas and Shawn Womack Dance Projects in Ohio – both of which performed and toured extensively throughout the United States.

The production is free and open to the general public, however tickets are required. Please contact the box office at (641) 269-4444 to make ticket reservations.