An Evening of Dance

Scripps Presents and Scripps College Dance Department bring innovative new dance works to campus for a special evening of movement discourse. The evening starts at Garrison Theater with Keith Johnson’s SERIES, followed by a jaunt to the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery to view the installation to get there from here with a live performance by its authors Maria Gillespie, Nguyễn Nguyên & Kevin Williamson. We return to Garrison for a finale of works by LA Contemporary Dance Company and Rebecca Lemme / Acts of Matter. Original dance films by the artists will be looping throughout the evening in Boone Recital Hall, adjacent to Garrison theater. Mingle, connect, and enjoy food and drinks as you traverse from one show to the next. An Evening of Dance at Scripps was made possible with support from The Claremont College’s Marian and Charles Holmes Performing Arts Fund, Scripps College Humanities Institute, and Scripps College Dance Department.

Schedule of Events:

4pm – Keith Johnson/Dancers SERIES at Garrison Theater

5:30pm – Refreshments will be served in front of Williamson Gallery

6pm – Maria Gillespie | Nguyễn Nguyên | Kevin Williamson to get there from here at the Williamson Gallery

7pm – Dinner and Discourse, Food Trucks on 11th

8pm – Return to Garrison Theater for a finale of works by Rebecca Lemme / Acts of Matter and LA Contemporary Dance Company

ABOUT THE WORKS

Maria Gillespie | Nguyễn Nguyên | Kevin Williamson

to get there from here is the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery’s fall exhibition at Scripps College. It is a choreographic investigation on mapping memories, unfixed, in and through the body. Movement artists Gillespie, Nguyên, and Williamson reflect on the allure and impossibility of destination through mixed media – stitching together panoramic videos, movement, and objects to animate the tension of never quite arriving while being propelled forward. As longtime collaborators, separated by distance, the artists will perform live to embody themes of reunion, transformation, and resilience within the gallery walls.

Keith Johnson/Dancers

SERIES is a collection of solos reflecting on family, death, the environment, race, and queer identity. Each solo is performed to a unique score and embodied differently, making new connections across identities, time, and space. Performances by Natalie Desch, Bahareh Ebrahimzadeh, Brad T. Garner, Colleen Hendricks, Kevin Holland, Kaia Makihara, Tara McArthur, Jesus Mora, Stephanie Liapis, and Kevin Williamson.

LA Contemporary Dance Company

and then life was beautiful follows a chosen family as they build an alternate reality, remembering what was and celebrating what is to be… Performed as an extension of the film by the same name, the piece is choreographed by members of the company who celebrate their seventeenth year in Southern California.

Rebecca Lemme / Acts of Matter

Forward Looking Back is a dance theater work reflecting on the pandemic’s effect on our individual and collective sense of community. It asks, what have we learned? What do we carry with us? And what do we want to leave behind? As characterized by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle, “Lemme has created a work that is sparse, yet vibrant…its stillness at times shouts out the internal turmoil that the world’s population experienced during the pandemic.”