A world premiere, a masterwork by 20th-century dance pioneer José Limón and the revival of an acclaimed work by jazz dance artist and faculty member Danny Buraczeski were featured in the Fall Dance Concert presented by SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts Division of Dance. The works performed:
- Opening the program was the premiere of Wild and Precious, a contemporary ballet by Robert Dekkers, artistic director of San Francisco’s Post:Ballet, set to composer Daniel Lentz’s minimalist work Wolf Is Dead. Created especially for the SMU Dance Ensemble, the performance was a celebration of both youthful energy and the evanescence of life.
- The program continued with There Is a Time, a masterpiece of modern dance created in 1956 by José Limón and composer Norman Dello Joio. SMU dancers performed the work by invitation in October at New York’s Joyce Theater as part of the 70th anniversary celebration of the Limón Dance Company; the Meadows School of the Arts was one of only nine university dance programs internationally selected to perform in the Limón festival.
- Concluding the Fall Dance Concert is a restaging of Professor Danny Buraczeski’s rollicking jazz work Swing Concerto, created in 1993 when he was artistic director of the acclaimed Minneapolis-based company Jazzdance.
Paul Phillips went behind the scenes to capture the performance. Here are 12 photos we love: