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129 East 7th |
Kids' Co'Motion
20th year celebration!
July 14 – August 2, 2008
Write, call or email for more information
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Kids' Co'Motion is an annual program designed to train children ages 8-18 in
modern dance technique, composition theory and practice and production. Each
day students spend an hour on technique, an hour on composition and
improvisation and two hours rehearsing for a final, fully produced dance
performance.
The title and theme for our program this year is Harmony. We will explore the many meanings of harmony, using music and dance as both a reality and as metaphor for social and societal harmony. We have selected Paul Micich, a composer/musician from central Iowa to create motifs that can exist as solos and combine to harmonize in a larger work of music. He will work directly with the children to develop those musical ideas while they are developing their dances. The World Port quartet will perform that music in concert.
The first two weeks of the workshop take place in the beautiful Betty Toman
Dance Studios at Iowa State University's Forker Building. The third week is
spent in the Ames City Auditorium. The day begins at 10:00am with a technique
class taught by a professional dancer/teacher. The students learn more about
dance technique as well as gaining strength, flexibility, coordination and
control. At 12:00 we break for a half hour to eat lunch and relax minds from the
rigors of the morning. At 12:30 we reconvene for two hours of rehearsal for the
final performance.
This year we will be working with and creating our own evironments, involving
ideas about air, water, and earth.
The Kids' Co'Motion performance workshop teaches more than dances to students:
Kids' Co'Motion builds choreographers, helps students gain confidence in their
own ideas and teaches them to organize those ideas and structure them into
dance. Students not only study with master choreographers and teachers, but
compose dances by themselves and with other students, taking advantage of
everyone's ideas.
This year's Kids' Co'Motion workshop is July 14 – August 2, 2008 KCM will meet from 10am-2:30pm Monday
through Friday, July 14 – August 1, with performances at 7:30pm on Friday and Saturday,
Aug 1 and 2, 2008.
For more information contact us at dance@comotion.org
or by calling 515-232-7374 or by writing to us at 129 East 7th, Ames, Iowa
50010
Kids' Co'Motion is supported, in part, by grants from Ames Commission On The
Arts (COTA).
Thanks also go to the ISU Department of Kinesiology.
Past Productions:
*WORLDSCAPES (2007)
This year we worked with creating our own environments, involving ideas about air, water, and earth.
*MAGIC CARPET (2006)
Stories of the fantastic inspired our dances
in 2006. We danced stories of comic book superheroes, stories from the Arabian
Nights, from outer space, and from our own vision of the fantastic.
*PORTRAITS (2005)
Dances based on self-portraits, portraits of families
and neighborhoods, portraits of society, music, paintings of land by Grant
Wood, and portraits of famous choreographers. Music by Bach, Boccherini,
Mozart, Part, Traditional. Set and costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*KALEIDESCOPEA (2004)
Dances based on color: the rainbow,
kaleidoscopes, the color of feelings, feelings from color, the color of music.
Music by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Pontiac Blues Band, Paganini, Morton Gould,
Beethoven. Set and costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*DIMENSIONS (2003)
Investigation of form will inspire our dances
this year. We will be working with forms in space, the forming of dances in
time, and two stories: "Flatland", by Edwin Abbott, and "In the
Land of the Perpendicular", by Susan Cantine. Music by Bach. Set and
costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*CONNECTIONS (2002)
Families, DNA, physical and emotional
connections inspired the dances for Connections. How do you dance with someone
who isn't there? Music by Reselman, Partch, Motion/Potter. Video, set and
costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*SPHERES (2001)
Balls, planets, the circle of life, spheres
of influence are among the ideas that will inspire the performance this year.
Spheres is about round objects and round thinking. Music by Bach. Set and
costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*FUTURE VISION (2000)
What are our dreams for ourselves and our
future? What place will machines have in our lives? This concert was inspired
by thoughts of who we have been as a people and visions of who we want to
become in 1000 years. Robots, travel to outer space, aliens, the evolution of
human society and other ideas will inspire the dances. Students followed their
imaginations to the future, creating a vision in dance of what may lie in store
for us. Music by Art of Noise, Bellinati, Madredeus, Riley, Suso, Tippet, Torf,
York. Set and costumes designed by Valerie Williams. Video by Gerry Sheble and
Valerie Williams.
*METAMORPHOSIS (1999)
A spectacular, abstract, and artful concert
of dances based on man-made patterns and patterns found in nature. Dances
inspired by seashells, snowflakes, splash and wave patterns, by locomotor
patterns and sung rounds, by Escher prints and Art Moderne. Music by Reich. Set
and costumes designed by Valerie Williams and Susan Norris. Video by Gerry
Sheble and Valerie Williams.
*SUPERHEROES (1998)
Based on Homer’s Odyssey, this production
follows the structure of the Odyssey, but the dances come from the characters
and qualities in the stories: leadership, responsibility, Shades, Wind and
Storm, war and confrontation. Director Valerie Williams, assistant director
Lana Lyddon Hatten and company member Amy Snoddy assisted with the dances for
scenes including the sailing boat, the giant Cyclops, Circe and her wine, the
Sirens, Odysseus and the shades, Euryclea recognizing the disguised Odysseus by
the scar on his leg, Penelope and Odysseus reunited, and Anthena preventing war
with the suitors families. These scenes among others formed our version of
Odysseus' travels. Music by Holst. Set and costumes designed by Valerie
Williams.
*ONCE UPON A... (1997)
Dances that tell stories: fables with a
twist. Fables by Thurber, Aesop, and our own. Music by Nuclear Whales, Us3.
Design by Lonna Nachtigal.
*IMPACT! IOWA HEROES (1996) 70mins
Dances inspired by Iowans of note: James Van
Allen, Kate Shelley, Victor Atanasoff. Music by Beethoven, Adrienne Torf,
Dvorak, Bach, Vivaldi. Set and costumes designed by Valerie Williams.
*IOWA TALES (1995)
In preparation for Iowa’s Sesquicentennial
celebration, dances with made with an Iowa connection: all composers and visual
artists are from Iowa or Iowa based. Music by Dan Hunter, Jerry Owen, Robert C.
Fuller, Greg Brown, Meredith Willson, Glenn Miller, Peter Schickele,
Traditional. Sections were entitled: Land and Pioneers, Picture Postcard
Musicale, Basketball, Whooping It Up. Set by Ted Lyddon Hatten.
*THE RING (1994)
An epic dance based on the epic The Ring of
the Niebelungen. Music by Richard Wagner. Set designed by Paula McArthur.
*GAMES (1993)
Four types of games inspired dances: Games of
Skill, Games of Chance, Games of Childhood, Games of Ego. Music by Bizet,
Faure, Debussy, Satie. Set design by Lonna Nachtigal.
*BEE’S KNEES (1992)
Nonverbal communication was the theme for
dances choreographed by students and director. Music by Hamish Moore and Dick
Lee. Set by Steve Brownless.
*WATERWORKS (1991)
Water above ground, at sea level, and below
the waves inspired dances with images from nature, Botticelli, and water
sports. Music by John Adams, Handel. Set by Steve Brownless.
*PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (1990)
Dances based on the music of Rimsky-Korsakov
and the paintings that inspired him. Design by Steve Brownless.
*SORCERER’S APPRENTICE (1989)
Magical dances opened the program which
included Fireworks and spooky dances. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice concluded the
program. Music by Stravinsky, Saint-Saens, Bach, Dukas. Set by Steve Brownless.