The UCSB Dance Company Performs IN DIFFERENT REALMS...EL ARTE PERDURA Next Month

The UCSB Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Delila Moseley, will present In Different Realms... el arte perdura, featuring works by choreographers from different realms of the dance world.

Guest artist Natasha Adorlee, a first-generation Asian-American woman, has restaged her piece MOMODA (Kiss, Kiss) created for Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Competition 2023. It explores impermanence, relationships and endearing affection, with boundless energy and joy in golden rivulets of movement. Natasha has established herself as an award-winning creative in choreography, filmmaking, and music composition. Her unique mastery of these skills, combined with her heritage, makes her work innovative, fresh, and filled with heart.

Cihtli Ocampo, Lecturer in the Department of Theater and Dance, will premiere her work Pasos (Steps), on the company; she describes the piece as an exploration of the journey from the ties of home, family, and tradition as restless travelers inch their way towards their destiny. Cihtli, of Mexican and Spanish heritage, brings a lifetime of experience in multiple cultures to every gesture, movement and expression. Cihtli Ocampo is the granddaughter of a Spanish Civil War Exile and the daughter of Mexican Olympic swimmer, Walter Ocampo. She views dance as the vehicle through which the body connects with the soul. Her choreographies are intense immersions into the everyday struggles of humankind.

Two works by Legacy Choreographer José Limón will be featured in this concert, as a continuation of the “Border Crossings: Voices of Exile and Hope” debut in January 2024 at the Hatlen Theater.  Mexican born American modern dancer and choreographer José Limón created Missa Brevis in 1958 after viewing the devastation in Poland resulting from World War II.  Alice Condodina, Professor Emerita, has reconstructed excerpts from Missa Brevis as well as the Running Dance from Psalm (1967), as an “Homenaje a Limón” (homage to Limón). José Limón, one of the 20th century’s most important and influential dance makers left a legacy of moving choreography that celebrates the human spirit overcoming hardships. 

Monique Meunier, Associate Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance, has created a piece, Feux Follets, (named after Liszt's Transcendental Etude No. 5, the music for the piece) that has the mysterious, lilting quality of the “will-o-the-wisp”. Feux Follets is a quartet that encompasses bravura, musicality, pointework, and strength with balletic lines. Ms. Meunier danced with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. In 2016, Miss Meunier was appointed to the inaugural committee of School of American Ballet’s Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.

“As an Ecuadorian/Cuban/American, it is a great honor to be a part of the border crossing theme of the year. I am especially proud that I will present a ballet piece and not a 'stereotypical Ecuadorian/Cuban dance'. Instead, this piece shows that Hispanics are more than the box we are put in or are asked to stay in. This piece comes from my long career in ballet and proves that Latinos have many facets and can find our voice through any realm we choose, precisely why my parents crossed the border.” - Monique Meunier

Still Photos: ReCollections of Georgia O’Keefe, inspired by photos of the painter Georgia O’Keefe, was choreographed by Betty Walberg for Tonia Shimin, Professor Emerita in 1987. Betty Walberg was a composer, arranger, and pianist for ballet, Broadway, and modern dance choreographers. During her time as a Lecturer at UCSB, she created this solo that Tonia has restaged for the company. The portraits and images within this dance reflect the photographs of Georgia O’Keefe by Tom Webb and Alfred Steiglitz. “The dance mirrors a tone poem: an extramusical idea, either poetic or descriptive.” One of Betty Walberg’s most enduring legacies is the young artists she challenged to be critical thinkers, to experiment adventurously, and to appreciate movement and music as inseparable partners.

The UCSB Dance Company is honored to present these divergent yet congruent works in the 2024 Season. The UCSB Dance Company is a student ensemble under the artistic direction of Delila Moseley. Now in its 35th year, the company offers graduating senior dance majors the opportunity to perform and travel as a pre-professional dance company. Its annual international tour (now in its 12th year) has taken the company to Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, The Czech Republic, England, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This year the company will travel to New York City on the way to Europe to participate in a workshop with members of the Limon Company and an informal showing, generated from the Border Crossings performances with the Limon Dance Company in January. The UCSB Dance Company presents lecture-demonstrations in elementary school, and community colleges as well as repertory concerts in theatrical venues. Each year the company features works by guest choreographers, from reconstructions of classic modern dance to contemporary ballet and current idioms of dance.

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