Emory Report

 September 2, 1997

 Volume 50, No. 2

Faculty presents inter-arts concert of dance, music, theater

The Dance Program will host a concert featuring the Atlanta performing debuts of new arts faculty as well premieres of faculty work, New Faculty/New Works: An Inter-Arts Concert at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, in the Performing Arts Studio.

The dance program will highlight new faculty member Wayne M. Smith, a specialist in jazz and modern dance techniques, who comes to Emory after teaching at Memphis State University for the past two years. Smith will perform his solo Push-Push-Push-Push-Push, a work based on different contexts of pushing (in giving birth, in opening a door, etc.) and a series of Smith's dreams, set to music by Thelonious Monk.

Bonni Pomfret, lyric-coloratura soprano, joins the music faculty after 11 years teaching at Illinois State University. In contemplating her selection for the concert, Pomfret was reminded of the genres combining like ingredients in a recipe, so she selected La Bonne Cuisine, a clever set of four recipes set to music by Leonard Bernstein. She also will perform an aria from Puccini's La Rondine and songs by Fauré. Pomfret will be accompanied on piano by fellow faculty member Deborah Thoreson.

Kendall Simpson, composer and director of the Concerts Division, created the concept and composed the score for We the Living, choreographed by Radell. This humorous work explores the tension between the individual versus the collective and features Simpson and university administrators Laura Papotto and Gary Hauk as performers.

A new piece by dance program director Sally Radell also will be premiered. Created for dance faculty Anna Leo and Lori Teague, Radell's piece, "The Act of Kissing and Other Social Connections," uses autobiographical text from all three women to uncover and trace the subtle, intimate and unusual memories of various kisses, which chronicle and highlight significant events in their own personal histories.

Actor, educator and writer Barry Stewart Mann appeared last year in Theater Emory's Renaissance Repertory. He combines travelogue, poetry, drama and movement in his piece American Spine. An Atlanta premiere, the solo theatrical performance portrays the true-life adventures of a pair of college students hitchhiking across the United States during Spring Break 1981.Call the box office at 727-5050 or send an e-mail to <boxoffice@ emory. edu> for more information.

-Deb Hammacher


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