2003-2004 ICE Project Grant
Bala Sarasvati
Professor
Dance
A collaborative project that involves artists and performers from music, dance and art disciplines, joined together to create and present a performance featuring original choreography, stage design, and live renditions of Philip Glass compositions.
Temporal Excursions with a Relative Departure in Mind is a collaborative project developed with the support of a project grant from ICE and additional funding by The Friends of Dance at UGA. The project features original choreography by Professor Bala Sarasvati, new digital animation by artist Mark Callahan, and compositions by Philip Glass performed by the UGA Philip Glass Ensemble, led by Ryan Burruss, an undergraduate student in the School of Music. The work has been performed at the New Dance Theatre (UGA Spotlight!2003, CORE Concert Dance Company: Spring Collection 2004), the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) Mosaic 25th Anniversary Celebration at Judson Memorial Church in New York, and a series of cultural festivals in China.
MOSAIC 2005, an annual performance series in New York, featured Bala Sarasvati and the CORE Concert Dance Company in November 2005 in an event titled The Aesthetics of Difference: Dance and Identity, where they performed excerpts from Temporal Excusions with a Relative Departure in Mind.
The work is treated as an interdisciplinary performance piece, drawing upon mid-century Laban Movement Theory, 70s post-modern concepts in dance (in which Judson Memorial Church figured prominently) and reflecting opera, film, and dance projects that have featured the music of Philip Glass. Curators John Chanik and Philip Horovitz chose portions of the work to be included in LIMS Brand New, an evening of six performances featuring the dialogue between established and young choreographers. The company of six dancers contains current undergraduates from the Department of Dance, recent UGA graduates, and members of the Athens community.
Dancers: Laura Glenn, Laura Henry, Joseph Hutto, Gwen Phillips, Julie Rothschild, and Lindsay Spilker. Musicians: Ryan Burruss, Eddie Jennings, Michael Napolean, Dan Nash, and Jason Wallace.
Music by Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima), Escape!, Metamorphosis Three, Melodies for Saxophone. Copyright 1983, 2002, 1989, 1996 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc. Used by permission.
