March 6, 2006

Acclaimed New York dance company on campus for two shows this weekend

By Scott Rappaport

In 2004, New York Times critic Jennifer Dunning noted that “one of the great pleasures of watching dance in New York over the past decade or so has been seeing the growth of David Dorfman from accomplished to inspired modern dance choreographer.”

The Santa Cruz program will include the David Dorfman Dance company’s newest work: Older Testaments.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary season, the acclaimed David Dorfman Dance company will appear at UCSC’s Mainstage Theater for two shows--this Friday, March 10, and Saturday, March 11--beginning at 8 p.m.

Tickets for both shows are still available (contact the UCSC Ticket Office at 831-459-2159 or events.ucsc.edu/tickets).

The inventive, athletic, modern dance company has been honored with seven New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) awards over the years and performed extensively throughout North and South America, and Europe. The UCSC stop is part of an 18-month celebration of performances and residencies  across the country that began last year to mark the company’s third decade of performing.

The Santa Cruz program will include the company’s newest work: Older Testaments, set to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of the Klezmatics, which received its premiere last June at the Joyce Theater in New York.

The David Dorfman Dance performances are being presented by UCSC’s Arts & Lectures program as part of its 2005-06 season. Also coming up this month is the critically acclaimed one-man play by Tony Award-nominee Calvin Levels, James Baldwin: Down from the Mountaintop, on Friday, March 17, at 8 p.m. in the Mainstage Theater.

The play traces the life of writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin--from his early days as a fiery young minister in Harlem to the publication of his first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and his relationships with such luminaries as Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X. In a recent review of the show, the Los Angeles Times observed that "Levels has a hypnotic power and a message that has never seemed more potent."

For more information about Arts & Lectures events, go to: http://artslectures.ucsc.edu.

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