Faculty, student dancers, musicians to unite

Faculty, student dancers, musicians to unite

BY DAWN DORSEY
Special to the Rice News

Serendipity — and a little planning — are the catalysts that made possible an upcoming world-premiere collaborative concert that brings together student and faculty composers, dancers and musicians.

The concert, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. April 5 in Stude Concert Hall in Alice Pratt Brown Hall, is the result of an unprecedented partnership among Shepherd School of Music faculty members and students and the Rice Dance Theatre. It features the first-ever public performance of six musical compositions with seven specially choreographed dance pieces.

Last year, Benjamin Kamins, Shepherd School professor of bassoon, had a spark of an idea to bring together the considerable talents of student and faculty composers with the dance group. He found an eager accomplice when he shared his ideas with Christine Lidvall, dance theater coordinator at Rice and a founder of Houston’s Chrysalis Dance Company.

Lidvall and Rebecca Valls, director of the Rice Dance Theatre, discussed the possibilities of an alliance with Rice faculty and staff composers and decided it was an exciting idea that would challenge and benefit the dance group.

“Originally, I approached the dance group because I wanted to collaborate on a new choreography of a Stravinsky piece,” Kamins said. “When that didn’t work out, we continued to talk more about the possibilities of combining music and dance.”

After months of discussion, Kamin’s spark evolved into a full-fledged concept. Lidvall would work with dance students to choreograph and perform dances to new works by student and faculty composers.

“Then it just turned into this giant collaboration and took on a life of its own,” Kamins said. “We spoke to Kurt Stallman, and he suggested allowing student composers to work with the dancers as a project.”

Stallman is an assistant professor of composition at the Shepherd School and the director of REMLABS — Rice Electronic Music Labs.

Kamins describes the music as “cutting-edge and contemporary.” Some of the selections are electronic, computer-generated pieces; others are performed by small ensembles.

The composers and choreographers include:

• Richard Lavenda/Christine Lidvall
• Kurt Stallman/Rebecca Valls
• Francisco Castillo/Katie Olsen
• Jordan Kuspa/Michele Edwards
• Christopher Lee/Nancy Ku
• Angelique Poteat/Anisha Srinivasan
• Daniel Sedgwick/Helen Coots

The concert will last approximately two hours. Admission is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. For more information, visit the Shepherd School Web site, <www.ruf.rice.edu/~musi/>.