News

MHC Grad Tours with Lucinda Childs

Congratulations to Anne Lewis (MHC ‘09), who recently embarked on a national tour of renowned choreographer Lucinda Child’s 1979 masterpiece DANCE. The tour began July 12th at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College and will culminate with performances at the Joyce Theater/NYC in October.

FCDD Awarded Prestigious “American Masterpieces” NEA Grant

The Five College Dance Department received a 2009-2010 “American Masterpieces” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the restaging of Mark Morris’s masterpiece, GLORIA. This work will first be performed at MHC on the Fall Dance Concert, November 12-14, to live choral and orchestral music, as part of the Dance Department’s opening of their new and improved Studio Theatre.   Also on the program will be a piece by renowned choreographer, David Dorfman.  Both pieces will be cast from auditions held in September (see below)

MHC Student Awarded Grant for Dance Project

Dian Liu MHC ’12, an accomplished dancer and choreographer in her native China, has been awarded a $ 10,000 Davis Peace Project grant in support of her “Dancing to Understanding” project. Liu’s proposal aims to promote peace and understanding between Tibetans and Han Chinese--the predominant ethnic group in China--by teaching the Chinese about traditional Tibetan dance.

Liu’s project will bring eight young Chinese choreographers to an intensive four-week Tibetan dance program this summer at the University of Tibet in Lhasa. The choreographers will then develop contemporary dance pieces to be performed at major dance festivals in China. The choreographers will also spread their knowledge of Tibetan dance through their own teaching and professional work, helping to bring Tibetan dance into the mainstream of Chinese contemporary dance. Liu is optimistic that the project will continue to thrive and spread once the initial summer program is completed.

A cofounder and choreographer of the Guangzhou Free Will Stage Dance Company, Liu has participated in major dance festivals and taught dance in high schools and universities in southern China. She has the support and cooperation of Beijing CCD Workstation, one of the biggest and most influential nonprofit dance organizations in China.

January Term 2010 – Choreographer Kinsun Chan

The Dance Department welcomes Kinsun Chan to work with students over January term, on a choreographic work to be performed on the Five College Dance Department concert, this year held at the Northampton Center for the Arts, in early March.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Kinsun works in a range of artistic disciplines, which he calls Multium Design. His interests are in choreography, film and design, as its singular form or through theircombinations. He studied Art, Graphic Design and Dance, attending Virginia Intermont College, Georgia State University, University of Louisville, Atlanta School of Ballet and Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet. He began a professional ballet career in America dancing with the Louisville Ballet and Cincinnati Ballet. He was a finalist at the Varna International Ballet Competition. Kinsun later came to Europe where he danced with the Zürich Ballet and Basel Ballet. He has danced a diverse repertoire from renown choreographers such as Kylian, Forsythe, Duato, Spoerli, Van Manen, Wherlock and Balanchine. He made his first choreography “Above Ground” at the Zürich Ballet. He was then chosen to attend the Swiss International Workshop in Choreography (SIWIC) and was also invited by Reid Anderson to choreograph for the “Noverre” at the Stuttgart Ballet. After joining the Basel Ballet Kinsun had the opportunity to further choreograph new works, which received critical acclaim. He has been invited to create new ballets next season (2009-2010) for the Tiroler Landestheater in Austria and Luzerner Theater in Switzerland.