The Hartt Dance Division, named “Best College Dance Program” by DanceUS for the past six years in a row, brings to the stage its fall program of classical and contemporary works.
The selected repertoire features the award-winning dancers of The Hartt School Dance Division in four works representing both classical and contemporary choreography in Ballet and Modern dance.
The works include Martha Graham’s “Diversion of Angels”, to an original score by Norman Dello Joio, premiered in 1948 in New London, Conn. It is a classic of the modern dance idiom depicting three aspects of love and is currently in the repertory of the Martha Graham Dance Company and ballet companies around the world. It is being restaged by Kim Stroud, a former Graham Company member and currently a faculty member at Hartt.
The renowned 19thcentury Ballet choreographer, Marius Petipa, is represented in excerpts from Le Corsaire and La Bayadere. These are being staged by faculty member Hilda Morales who danced these works with American Ballet Theater and Pennsylvania Ballet. Debra Ryder, a former principal dancer with The Hartford Ballet is recreating her work “Passeri” which is a contemporary ballet “en pointe” taking inspiration from the avian form, Passerine.
Lastly, Katie Stevinson-Nollet, a former dancer and founding director of Full Force Dance Theater is busy creating a new work in the contemporary dance idiom featuring 18 dancers from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year student body.
Hartt School Dance Division director, Stephen Pier, shares, “In our current culture, as words become a less trustworthy and more divisive mode of communication, we can find joy, truth, and deep connection in humanity’s most elemental and honest form of communication, Dance!”
Hartt Dances will be presented on Nov. 13–15, at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on Nov. 15, at 2 p.m., and held in Millard Auditorium. Tickets can be reserved via the Box Office or by calling 860.768.4228.