What Do You See? / 2019

Linda Bair Dance Company @ John Natsoulas Gallery

Linda Bair Dance Company presented 

“What Do you See”

June 1 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

The company performed along other guests from the Sacramento area as well as out of state dancers. Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon performed My Hands / Tus Brazos and Impasse. Morejon performed Wrong Song with the company, a piece that was performed in Miami last year and closed the event at Natsoulas. 

Hatch: Danceworks in Progress

Hatch: Danceworks in Progress, is an event that returns for its eighth year at the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, California.  The event presents cutting-edge dance performances throughout the Museum by established and up-and-coming choreographers. Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon presented their new piece Impasse, the second of a series of pieces they continue to work on. For the past eight years, Hatch has been making possible for the audience to see the the creative process up close.  At the end of the presentations, the event included a post-performance audience Q&A. Taking inspiration from the exuberant, kinetic works in the exhibition "Big Ideas: Richard Jackson’s Alleged Paintings", Bair and Morejon created a piece that originally used the wall as  a movement reference, but that eventually, once known the wall was not available, evolved as a more abstract/expressionistic piece. 

Hatch: Danceworks in Progress
Thursday, May 30
6:30 - 9 PM
Free for members
Free with admission for nonmembers

Dancing Glass at Canes Film Festival 2019

 

 

Canes Film Festival

Hosted by the Department of Cinema and Interactive Media, the Canes Film Festival 2019, under the leadership of Faculty advisor Ed Talavera, took place at the Cosford Cinema, University of Miami, from May 2nd - 5th. Facilitated by professors Carol Kaminsky and Jorge Luis Morejon, the documentary presents the work of 18 students as they begin their four months journey into Dance Improvisation.  Inspired by glass art-work, the students' experience successfully culminates in a live showcase at the Lowe Art Museum.

CIM 594 / 19:48 min

Director: Luis Afuni Avila

Producers: Luis Afuni Avila, Carol Kaminsky

Dancing Glass: The Documentary

The documentary Dancing Glass, the result of the CREATE Grant, was shown at the Lowe Arts Museum where Dancing Glass was also performed. The project was led by Professors Karol Kaminsky and Jorge L. Morejon who invited the Dance Improvisation class to create dance pieces based on the glass sculptures exhibited in the museum's collection. The videographer and editor of the documentary is Luis Afiuni Avila, a B.S.C. Motion Pictures & B.A. Studio Art student and Graphic Design Intern at University of Miami. The showing took place at the Coral Gables Campus on Saturday May 4th, 2019 at 2:00 PM

Music, Moods and Moves / 2019

A dance ensemble was created with four students from Jorge Luis Morejon's Orientation to Dance class. They danced to a sampler from Dafnis Prieto's Grammy Award Winner "Back to the Sunset." The dance piece also called Back to the Sunset recreated a story that involved a group of youngsters who meet every day to look at Miami's sunset as part of a youth ritual. It is during that time that they explore their relationship with each other in a playful manner by moving across each other, dancing with each other, showing off their dance skills. That playful time is short since the sunset only lasts a few minutes. Once the sun is down, they split and sadly walk away hoping to meet again the following day.

Orientation to Dance students Mickey Doranee, Kit Kreiger, Drew Mouacdie and Chloe Lin in Back to the Sunset at Music, Moves and Moves 2019.

Wonders of Glass Community Day: “Dancing Glass: Reflection of Art through Dance,”

 

Piece:Target

Carol Kaminsky and Jorge Luis Morejón (Faculty)

Dance Program/Vocal Performance/Frost School of Music

“Dancing Glass: Reflection of Art through Dance,” Research Project. (CREATE Grant)

Lowe Art Museum's Glass Community Day

Photographer: Maydelaine Rodriguez Castillo

 

Audience Members' Reviews

I attended the Frost School of Music’s “Dancing Glass” performance in the Lowe Art Museum this past weekend. I absolutely loved it and enjoyed every minute of the performance! It was not at all what I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised. This performance consisted of six different acts, and each group of dancers was assigned a work of art to inspire an improvisational dance piece. The dancers were from the improvisation class within the dance department at UM. My favorite piece was definitely the one inspired by Head #4 by Beril Vallien (1996). Although the dance was a little creepy at first, I thought it was incredibly creative. Additionally, I loved watching the “on the spot” improvisation performance by Carol Kaminsky and Jorge Luis Morejón. I could only imagine how nervous you might have been, I know I would have been! I think it was really beautiful and symbolic of Target by Janusz Walentynowicz (1997). I came to the show with a friend, and when you asked the audience what the Target piece might symbolize or look like, my friend told me that “It looks like it means that you are a target everywhere, no matter where you are” because there are faces in all frames of the piece, not just on the bulls eye. I thought this was really insightful and wanted to share. I think this performance related to our course obviously because it was a dance performance, but also because it allowed the dancers to express themselves and use symbolism to tell a story about an art piece. I think this was really beautiful and could potentially be therapeutic. Karina Lutfey

I attended the event that took place on 1st December at the Lowe Museum that was performed by University of Miami dance students and Frost School of music students. The reason that I chose this event to write a response paper was that this show was the most related event to our dance class. The most impressive dance among all the movements is the improvisation creation for the art piece named Target. The movements are very challenging as the dancers use action to depict the original work of art. However, the dancers skillfully exerted the distance to show the connection and separation from the original art piece. The exact facial expression and proper tool assistance help audience perfectly refine the work of art-Target.The improvisation movement is quite similar from what we have done in the class since the purpose of the course is to bring the techniques of dance therapy to dancers. Movements in the dance are the essential combination to treat patients from dance therapy. The movements remind me of the Laban effort action and how it can enhance individual’s movements’ preference. In addition, the specific movements enhance people’s following emotions: anger, fear, happiness and sadness. Yukun Zhang

Dancing Glass: Reflections of Art through Dance was a performance put on by DAN 190 Improvisation students, where they had to pick out a piece of art from the Lowe Art Museum and make a dance routine to it. The dance routine had to start from improvisation and then develop into a routine. There were 6 dances in total, in response to 5 pieces of art. My two favorite performances were in response to the work “Spiral Neon”. Both of these dances did a great job of representing the colorful, connected spirals that were the focus of the piece. The colorful wigs and the colorful tassels brought out the colors from the spirals, and then the dancers held hands and moved in circular motions to represent the circular spiral shapes and the connectedness of the artwork. This was the first time that I had seen art portrayed through dance and I could definitely see the Spiral Neon in each of the two dances. The performers did a great job of bringing this structure to life. The other performances were to “Head #4”,“Target”, “Resurrection Angel”, and “Dancers”. Of these performances, I liked the representation of “Head #4” and “Target” the most. In “Head #4” the dancers all wore white masks to match the head in the figure and they did a great job of making the figure into a dance. It was very cool to look for certain things like the fact that the tallest girl had the box on top of her head, which I connected to the sculpture because the head was at the top of the podium and it had the box on the very top. I found myself really trying to connect the sculptures to the dances and I was very happy when I could see a clear connection. Christian Brown

 

 

COISO: International Dance Competition 2018

University of Miami international students founded the Council of International Students and Organizations (COISO) in 1967 with the intent to promote and defend the interests of all international students and organizations; to integrate international students with campus life and the community where possible, to provide cultural and social activities for all students; to name and nominate official representatives of this council to all University of Miami committees as requested; to assist all international students and organizations on campus that so request it, in coordinating and harmonizing their campus activities; to help interested international groups to organize and become registered as approved organizations at the University of Miami; to provide services and information to the University and the student body and to refrain from sponsoring any political ideas or activates emanating from outside campus issues.

On Thursday, November 15^th, at 9:00 PM, at the Rock, COISO hosted the International Dance Competition 2018. This annual competition organized by COISO, invited various organizations around campus to show off their culture in a dance battle. This year’s theme was Disney's House of Villains!  Dr. Jorge L. Morejon was invited to judge the competition. Groups such as FSA, Virus, Sugar Canes, Olokun, etc, performed to make a statement about not only villains, but about diversity. The dance and music mediums were a conduit to express students ‘culture and love for the arts. Costumes, make up, music, choreography and stage skills combined to entertained a well attended event with lots of opportunities for student participation. There was food, there were games, there was dance and music and there was fun.