ChoreoLab presents inaugural concert

“Power: the preservation of order,” an evening of dance that showcases new and emerging works by UB faculty, guest artists, and undergraduate and graduate students, will take place April 12-14 in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The event is the inaugural concert of ChoreoLab a performance and choreographic research laboratory in the Department of Theatre and Dance dedicated to fostering a diverse, creative environment to explore choreographic innovation, and interdisciplinary and project-based approaches to developing performance.

Directed by Trebien Pollard, assistant professor of dance, ChoreoLab reflects contemporary trends while supporting the artists and their role within society and culture. Each activity will demonstrate a rigorous investigation in art-making, performance and physical practice.

“Power” will include individual and collaborative works that blend contemporary and cultural dance styles with text, projection and voice to create a multimedia tapestry of visual theater.

The concert will open with a pre-show gallery performance installation (at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.) choreographed by Jo Davila. Davila’s work, “Once More, with Feeling,” uses choreographic motifs to expose the facades of humanity while also revealing the honesty of experience and feeling.

“The Poetics of Relation,” a new work presented by Pollard, ruminates on how space and place are not merely broad frames of a geographical location, but also a reality to be understood through the lived body. This work explores the interplay between being and belonging within the accounts of enclosures.

“Be Alone and Together at the Same Time,” a new work crafted by graduate students Dahye Lee and Mary Grace Sullivan, is an intimate look at what it means to be alone while remaining in social proximity and with soft connections to others. The artists explore the idea of how to be full of desires, hopes, memories and love, while reckoning with aloneness.

A new work by Aurora Hastings is inspired by her passion for jazz dance and the movement and qualities of jazz legends Ron Lewis and Luigi. Hastings has created a living archive of tradition, form, history and legacy.

Moriah Markowitz’s “No Longer Apologetic” uses an oversized T-shirt as a metaphor for collective communal power. In manipulating and transforming the shirt, Markowitz strives to expose the rawness of individuality within a collective design.

Olivia Lovsin and Kat Bark team up to investigate the concept of darkness and people’s fear of the unknown. Guest artist Aimee Rials has been investigating identity for a number or years. Her work, “The Quiet We Keep,” continues down this path, investigating how the expectation of community can influence the parts of ourselves we allow others to see.

Both Carly Kleinman and Nitya Seshadri Vedantam explore cultural rituals and customs. Kleinman’s “Tōna Kaha” draws inspiration from the dances and movement qualities of the Maori tribe in New Zealand, while Seshadri Vedantam’s piece explores widowhood in India and poses question of empathy and representation. Can empathy and experience be shared by bodies across borders of time, space, place and race? Can we comment and critique without erasing histories?

Tickets for “Power: the preservation of order” are $20 for general admission and T10 for students and seniors, and are available at the CFA box office.