Department of Theatre and Dance

Artistic Directors: Holly Williams and Yacov Sharir
Choreography by Andrea Beckham, Mary Chase, Charlotte Griffin, Harrison McEldowney, Yacov Sharir and Holly Williams

B. Iden Payne Theatre
March 29, 30, 31 @ 8:00 PM
April 1 @ 2:00 PM
B. Iden Payne Theatre

Tickets: $16 adults, $13 UT faculty & staff, $10 students available at the TPA Ticket Office, online at www.utpac.org or by phone at 477-6060.

Media and Resources:

• Press and Reviews
• Director Information
• Works Included
• Synopsis

Synopsis:

Ways to Get There offers a showcase of original, unique and compelling dance work, created by renowned choreographers based in Austin and around the U.S. With dance made especially for the camera (Raw Luck) that will be shown as a film, to dance that tells a story (The End of Firpo in the World), to works that are extremely physical, daring and energetic (Aria Redux, Parade, Corner), this program is an evening of intriguing entertainment performed by the acclaimed Dance Repertory Theatre and produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas.
*This program is not suitable for young children.

In the past year, DRT has toured to and performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the International Dance Congress in Athens, Greece, and the Choreography Showcase in Fort Worth. Known widely as an exceptional producer of emerging national talent, DRT performs dance by internationally recognized choreographers and University of Texas faculty. Recent guest choreography has included works by Mark Morris, Ann Carlson, Doug Elkins, Onye Ozuzu and Michael Foley.

Works included:

• Parade (premiere)
  Choreography by Yacov Sharir
  Composer: Michael Kapoulas, "Earth Verses"
  Design by graduate students in Costume Design
  A collaboration of choreography and design, in which extraordinary and fanciful costumes constructed from paper set the tone for an abstract group dance.
• The End of Firpo in the World (2000)
  Choreography/Staging by Holly Williams
  Based on the short story by George Saunders
  Actor Corey Jones narrates the tragic story, told through movement, of a young boy's final bicycle ride.
• Aria Redux (premiere)
  Choreography by Harrison McEldowney
  Design by Jennifer Madison
  Guest artist Harrison McEldowney, who has created works for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and other national companies, showcases his daring physical style on DRT dancers in this work set to restyled opera arias.
• Memory Number (premiere)
  Choreography by Mary Chase
  An abstract design of movement, breath and energy.
• Corner (2001)
  Choreography by Charlotte Griffin
  The Big Band sound of the Chick Webb Orchestra propels this fun, quirky solo.
• Raw Luck (premiere)
  Director/Choreographer/Editor: Holly Williams
  Director of Photography: Iskra Valtcheva
  Music: Linda Dowdell
  Film students, dancers and an actor collaborate in a unique dance-for-the-camera project -- filmed on location in downtown Austin -- that tells a story in which dance becomes the catalyst for a series of unusual events…. The original music score is by Linda Dowdell, former musical director of the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York.
• There and Not There (2006)
  Choreography: Andrea Beckham
  Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  Mozart's beautiful Overture and N.21 is the backdrop for this lush, fluid dance.
• Finale (premiere)
  Choreography and Music: Holly Williams
  Rhythm and energy showcase the full cast of the Dance Repertory Theatre company.

Directors:

Holly Williams:

Holly Williams is a choreographer, dance administrator and professor at UT who has performed nationally and internationally with the companies of Mark Morris, Laura Dean and Jose Limon. Ms. Williams' choreography for the Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Theatre Alliance, Dallas Theatre Center and the concert stage have won her national acclaim. She has presented concerts of her own work in Austin and at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York, and her choreography has been commissioned by companies in California, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma. In the past year she has created new works for the State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara, the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive/Austin, Contemporary Ballet Dallas, Ballet Austin Senior Young Artists, and Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth. In summer 2004 her dance/video work "Bolero" made its international debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland and her signature work "Black Magic" toured to Innsbruck, St. Johann and Salzburg, Austria as part of the Tanzsommer Festival. She recently served as a 2004 dance panelist for the National Endwoment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has a B.A. from Barnard College/Columbia University and an M.F.A. from Texas Woman's University, from which she received the 2001 Distinguished Alumnae Award in Dance. At the University of Texas she currently heads the M.F.A./Dance program and serves as Head of the Performance Unit. She is on the Board of Directors of the Dance Critics Association and the American College Dance Festival Association and has been active in the Performing Arts Research Coalition multi-year audience survey project funded by the Pew Trust.

Yacov Sharir:

After graduation from the Bezalel Academy of Arts, Professor Sharir studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, the Bat-Sheva Dance Company School, the Stuttgart Ballet, and the Ballet Theatre Contemporaine in Paris. He has performed under the direction of Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins, Jose Limon and Anna Sokolow, among others. A dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel, Sharir is the founder of both the American Deaf Dance Company and the Sharir Dance Company, a professional dance company of the UT College of Fine Arts. As a multiple recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship, he has choreographed for such companies such as the Bat-Sheva Dance Company, Hartford Ballet, Dallas Ballet, the Kibbutz Dance Company of Israel and the Utah Repertory Dance Theatre. He was a recipient of an "Arts And Virtual Environments" two year fellowship awarded by the Banff Center for the Arts and is engaged in extensive international lectures and workshops directly related to the issues of virtual environments, cyberspace and computerized choreography.

Guest Artist/Choreographer: Harrison McEldowney
Harrison McEldowney. based in Chicago, has choreographed for Carnegie Hall's 125 Yr. Celebration of Musical Theater, for the '92 Barcelona Olympics Closing Ceremonies, the 35th Anniversary Tour of American Bandstand, and the Australian Concert Tour of Dirty Dancing featuring Bill Medley, Eric Carmen, and the Contours. He has also worked with Sammy Davis Jr., Van Johnson, Chita Rivera, Dorothy Lamour, rap artists Salt n Pepa, Carol Channing, and Debbie Reynolds.

Recently he contributed choreography to the Sam Mendes film Road to Perdition. Other films include Mark Medoff's Children on Their Birthdays and the Indie film Vanilla City in which he also played a role. Harrison also choreographs and directs shows for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, most recently for the launch of Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world.

In Chicago, Harrison has choreographed for are Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (Harrison was also the co-recipient of the inaugural Prince Prize along with Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance Company), Hubbard Street 2, River North Chicago Dance Company, the Cerqua/ Rivera Art Experience, and the Civic Ballet of Chicago. Other companies include Ballet Met, Louisville Ballet, San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet, Ballet of Texas; he is Resident Choreographer for Configurations which features acclaimed dancers from such companies as American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theater of Harlem.

Press and Reviews:

• 4/5/07 XLent Review of “Ways To Get There...”

Cast:

TBA

Scene Design: TBA
Costume Design: Jennifer Madison
Lighting Design: Dylan Henderson
Technical Director: TBA
Stage Manager: TBA