1st National Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education"

National Academy for the Performing Arts  (NAPA).

Paper Title: “Higher Education Learning Environments and Outcomes: Artistic Cross-Curricular Educational Programs and Policies.”   Port of Spain.  Trinidad and Tobago.  November 17 – 18, 2011.

Get Up and Dance

LECTURE: Dr Jorge Morejon before he left the podium. —Photos: ANISTO ALVES

Get Up and Dance!


By Zahra Gordon
Story Created: Oct 15, 2011 at 9:34 PM ECT
(Story Updated: Oct 15, 2011 at 9:34 PM ECT )

Before he got participants to join him on stage for a lecture on the evolution of Caribbean dance, UWI Department of Creative & Festival Arts lecturer, Dr Jorge Morejon, explained that Caribbean people have embraced their coloniser's structure for learning, "You are sitting to receive information when dance is an experience of the body," he says, later describing the nature of the modern symposium as "counter-productive".

And so, Morejon invited all attendees to the stage at Queen's Hall, St Ann's where he was presenting the keynote address — "The Evolution of Dance: A Caribbean Perspective" — of the first Symposia of Decades of Dance Dance Festival on October 10.

The lecture focused on community dance based on research of the Areitos, a music and dance of the Tainos. Morejon taught the Areitos while expounding on Caribbean history, politics, community building and alternative teaching methods.

According to Morejon, the Areitos was not merely a dance but a lifestyle that spanned the economic, political and religious systems of this native Caribbean people. Due to time constraints, he was unable to give a more detailed presentation but still managed to get his main points across.

Participants had to form a circle, introduce themselves and get acquainted with the space they were occupying through undirected movement. The session ended with each participant saying the first positive word that came to mind. "This way brings consensus. You will get to know each other and no longer be an anonymous face in the audience. By learning each other's name's we create community"

Creating a circle shifts the attention from one person to all the people present and represents the universe. The Areitos is danced in a circle with arms entwined and was one aspect of Taino community building from which the group drew economic and politic force.

One movement of the Areitos includes a "two step," the second of which is a stomp. "The stomp they believed was when the energy of the earth would travel through their bodies imbibing a force that is beyond you and creating music," shared Morejon.

The Areitos model, says Morejon, can provide a base for uniting a region where problems such as colonialism and neo-liberalism still exist and that is socially and economically fragile. "It is the dance that ties us (the Caribbean nations) together. Imagine the Caribbean as one country. At one point we spoke the same language and were good navigators travelling from Trinidad to Cuba. This is a pattern for consideration for the empowerment of Caribbean people. We can use dance as a model for us to come together but this has to be done through an embodied system where we can embody culture, embody tradition and embody identity," says Morejon.

Morejon also feels this model should be implemented in schools and used whether or not the subject is dance. "If children have fun as they learn, they will want to come to school, especially if it is related to who they are and where they come from," says Morejon who noted that this teaching style can be replicated through similar dances of the African and Indian origin.

Much in the manner with which we refer to the Tainos – Morejon shared that "Taino" is a name of European creation – we also practise traditional dances. "We are creating the Areitos in the subjunctive mood; what could've been. It could've been like this or not but this method opens space for creativity – something within us."

Morejon is of Cuban origin and received his doctorate from the University of California, Davis. He has twenty years of experience in dance, performance art, theatre and opera, having participated in more than 40 productions and appearing at venues like the Montalvo Arts Center and the Sacramento Theatre Company.

The symposium included various panels relating to dance culture and history including a presentation on the theatre of dance, running a dance company, the tradition of dance in Trinidad and Tobago and the unity of the Caribbean dance fraternity. Speakers included Sat Balkaransingh, Sonja Dumas, Nancy Herrera, Dr Hollis Liverpool, Dr L'Antoinette Stines, Jennifer Sealy and LaShaun Prescott.

link: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sunday-mix/Get_Up_and_Dance_-131928698.html.

Performance for Better Facilities

Performance for Better Facilities.  University of the West Inides, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.  October 5th, 2011.  Photo Malaika Ryan

This is a picture I consider important for the records. It is a performance the students put together asking for better facilities and as a prelude for a possible demolition of our department's two historic buildings on Agostini Street, Saint Augustine Campus, to build a parking lot or a car park (as they are called in Trinidad).  In the field of Performance Studies, this picture puts our department, the Creative and Festival Arts Center from the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, at the very top of the performance movement. Bravo!

Conference on Ethnicity, Race and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean (ERIP).

Paper title: “Rivero’s Transcultural Dramaturgy: Transcendental Dance in Súlkary.”

Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies.

University of California, San Diego, U.S.A.

November 3-5, 2011.

LINK: http://ccis.ucsd.edu/events/conferences/

Conference: Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective and Memory

Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective and Memory
Society of Dance History Scholars Annual Conference
York University’s Masters of Fine Arts Graduate Program in Dance, the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama and UC Drama at the University of Toronto as well as the Toronto-based companies Dancemakers, Series 8:08 and Nightswimming
Toronto, Canada
June 23 – 26, 2011

Paper title: “Transcultural Dramaturgy of Aesthetic Ritual: Súlkary.”

My Hands/Tus Brazos

My Hands/Tus Brazos

Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon (Photographer Tommy Gleason), Linda Bair Dance Company

Grass Valley, California.



Once again, My Hands/Tus Brazos, the piece choreographed by Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejón, was successfully performed as part of an evening length show at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley, California on Friday, February 4^th, 2011.  The sold out venue hosted not only a great group of dancers, but an enthusiastic and receptive local audience.

Hinterland

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Theater Review: UC Davis Theater & Dance
Dept.'s "Hinterland"

Is there such a thing as the soul? That’s the question at stake in Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough’s duo of radio plays, a mostly ingenious presentation of a complex debate in a medium that is at once retro and modern.

Individually titled “Mapping the Soul” and “Hinterland” but combined into one two-part stage performance titled “Hinterland,” each play is about 50 minutes long. While the audience at Wright Hall’s Main Theatre watches, the actors stand onstage in front of microphones, speaking their dialogue in radio-show fashion. Off to the side of the stage, a team of Foley artists creates sound effects to accompany the supposed, but not literal, actions of the characters.

In the first play, “Mapping the Soul,” an anatomist and his assistant dissect a corpse in hopes of finding the exact place that the soul resides. Meanwhile, a scientist named Adam who believes there is no such thing as the soul is knocked out and, in his unconscious state, traverses an underworld which parallels the anatomist’s dissection. Both worlds are observed by the Soul, who perches above, unseen by the characters, and offers singsong insight into his true nature.

The second play, “Hinterland,” follows a similar structure. Scientist Adam and his partner, Eve, are banished to an underworld full of wolves, Sineaters and gravediggers who stalk them and attempt to steal Adam’s soul.

The structure of the performance – a radio show, but performed onstage – takes some getting used to. It’s disorienting at first to watch the actors speaking their lines but not performing any of the accompanying actions, especially because the subject matter is, by its very nature, mysterious and ill-defined. Major concentration is necessary to simply keep up with what the characters are saying and follow the plot. The fact that the play is meant to be almost purely auditory complicates our understanding even further.

Yet there is something delightfully old-fashioned about the whole production. It’s fun to watch the sound effects being created – for the dissection of the corpse, a Foley artist cuts up a head of cabbage, and for a boat paddling, fingers are splashed in a bowl of water. In a nice throwback to the golden days of radio drama, bright red “On Air” signs flash at the start of each play, reminding us that we are witnessing what is normally never seen; that is, the visuals of a radio show.

Modern touches are woven in seamlessly, for the most part. The wolfpackers and chorus in “Hinterland” wear all-black, street-punk getups and the stage is dramatically lit with spotlights and fog. Beat-boxing and rap, though entertaining, are a bit jarring and feel a little out of place.

Ultimately, the cast makes these two very difficult pieces come together. Jorge Morejόn, as the Soul in “Mapping the Soul,” makes a character that could have been lofty and self-righteous endearingly human and just a touch flamboyant (who else could rock those hot-red pumps?). Alongside Morejόn, Brendan Ward and Yana Zhovinsky as Adam and the Assistant deliver powerful yet grounded performances. Kevin Adamski and Alejandro Torres also have amusing rapport as two underlings in “Hinterland.” In a radio show, it’s all about the voice, and each actor brings a distinct flavor to his or her lines.

One wonders if it was really necessary to make radio plays into a stage show, since the actors fit so well into the radio-style writing and the stage is not utilized as it would be in a regular visual production. But perhaps to choose one or the other would have been too simple for such an ever-changing entity as the human soul.

Posted by Robin Migdol at 3:17 PM