Theatre and Dance announces spring season

The Department of Theatre and Dance’s spring season of dance and drama brings recognized directors and choreographers together with esteemed faculty and emerging student talent to produce innovative original productions that both entertain and explore the human condition.

Live, in-person performances return this season in the Center for the Arts and in the Katharine Cornell Theatre in the Ellicott Complex.

The lineup:

Dance

Zodiaque Dance Company

March 11-12: 7:30 p.m.
March 12-13: 2 p.m.
Drama Theatre, Center for the Arts

The 47th spring program of the Zodiaque Dance Company, UB’s pre-professional dance company, features jazz, tap, modern, afro-fusion and contemporary dance works. The show is co-directed Kerry Ring, clinical associate professor, and Michael Deeb Weaver, clinical assistant professor.

Choreographers include Ring, Deeb Weaver and dance faculty members Anne Burnidge, Jenna Del Monte Zavrel and Thomas Ralabate. Guest choreographers include Buffalo artist Megan Rakeepile; alumni Richard Ashworth and Julie LaMancuso; and professional guest choreographer Takehiro “Take” Ueyama from the Take Dance Company.

Choreolab

April 1-2: 7:30 p.m.
April 3: 2 p.m.
Drama Theatre

Now in its third season, ChoreoLab is a performance and choreographic research laboratory for faculty, graduate and undergraduate dance students, and guess artists. Dedicated to fostering a diverse, creative environment in which to explore movement, ChoreoLab embraces contemporary trends whils supporting dancers, and investigates the role fo dance within society and culture.

Under the leadership of Jenna Del Monte Zavrel, artistic director and clinical assistant professor, ChoreoLab's spring program includes 33 student performers, both undergraduate and graduate.

Ariel Nereson, director of graduate dance, is creating a work to be performed by the entire MFA Dance cohort, along with three undergraduate dancers and additional collaborators from other disciplines, including MA theatre candidate Kaylie Horowitz and English PhD student Dana Venerable.

Guest artists Paul Ocampo and Chien-Ying Wang of the OcampoWang Dance Company are creating a new contemporary piece for ChoreoLab during their spring 2022 residency. Hailing from Taiwan and the Philippines, respectively, the pair has been making dances together since 2001. Their works have been presented in their home countries, as well as in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, China, Indonesia and the United States. Ocampo and Wong are noted for their “world-embracing approach to culture.”

Student choreographers include Ruby Abraham, Anna Caison Boyd, Lyssie Hartzog, Melanie Kaisen and Theo. Alongside Zodiaque Dance Company, ChoreoLab provides versatile choreographic and performance opportunities for UB students that reflect the current dance landscape.

MFA Dance Thesis Concert

April 8-9: 7:30 p.m.
Drama Theatre

The annual MFA Dance Thesis Concert will feature the premier of new works by MFA dance candidates Jacqueline Cherry and Meg Kirchhoff, with performance by MFA dancers Anna Caison Boyd, Abby Cass, Natasha McCandless and Samantha Schmeer, and undergraduate dancers Gabi Marshall, Kelly Quinn, Celia Ramos and Hayley Timberlake. Ariel Nereson, assistant professor and director of graduate dance, serves as faculty adviser.

The production showcases the culmination of Cherry and Kirchhoff’s creative research from their thesis project. The concert features collaborations with media artists and the student performers.

Cherry’s work is a collection of thought-provoking pieces that reflect her points of view on various concepts and experiences culminating from studies in Black feminist thought, sociology, embodiment and somatic practices.

Kirchhoff’s piece, which explores the physicality of responsiveness, attention and intra-activity, is supported by a public humanities grant and features live music performed and composed by UB PhD candidate Thomas Little.

Theater

“Twelfth Night”

April 21-23: 7:30 p.m.
April 23-24: 2 p.m.
Black Box Theatre, Center for the Arts

“Twelfth Night” is Shakespeare’s story of a woman who finds herself in a world where she doesn’t belong, and features characters freshly grieving the loss of cherished loved ones. Despite the themes of loss and grief, “Twelfth Night” doesn’t linger in sorrow, but rather presents a world full of hope and merriment — a zany comic romp through mistaken identity, the thrill of falling in love and the discovery of lost things found once more. The show is directed by Danielle Rosvally, clinical assistant professor.

Studio Theatre Ensemble: Vinegar Tom

April 29-30: 7:30 p.m.
Katharine Cornell Theatre

“Vinegar Tom” was written in 1976 by British playwright Caryl Churchill, who collaborated with the feminist theater company Monstrous Regiment after meeting some of its members at a pro-choice protest in the 1970s. Their hope was to create a play about the difficulties of women’s lives in 17th-century England and how women who didn’t live by the mores of the time or were perceived as “difficult” would often be branded as witches. It was also intended as an allegory for women’s lives in the 20th century.

The music was composed by Helen Glavin, co-founder of Monstrous Regiment, and the show was created collaboratively over several months before its debut on Oct. 12, 1976, at the Humberside Theatre, Hull, England.

The protagonist is Alice, a woman in her 20s living in a small village with her mother, Joan. The pair is accused of witchcraft after an argument with neighbors Jack and Margery. The neighbors have struggled economically and there are issues surrounding their sex life. Fearing that God is against them, Jack and Margery choose to believe their misfortunes are the result of Joan’s witchcraft, and act with malice.

It is later implied that Joan’s cat, Vinegar Tom, may have been responsible. Accusing others of witchcraft in order to shift blame toward nonconforming women, including the single, old, poor, shrewd or accomplished, was not uncommon in 17th century England, and so became a narrative theme of the time. It was another means to disempower women.

“Violet”
May 5-7: 7:30 p.m.
May 7-8: 2 p.m.
Drama Theatre

“Violet” is a musical about a young woman on a quest to right the wrongs of her past. Based on “The Ugliest Pilgrim” by Doris Betts, the award-winning production travels from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1964. The music is by Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori, known for many successful shows, including “Shrek the Musical” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Book and lyrics are by Brian Crawley. “Violet” features a vibrant range of American roots and gospel music that depict the journeys of the soul, including the show-stopping inspirational song “Let It Sing.”

Violet is directed and choreographed by award-winning guest artist Terry Berliner, who served as assistant director of the original production of Violet 25 years ago at Off Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons. The cast and designers are students from the Department of Theatre and Dance. Musical direction is by Alison d’Amato, clinical assistant professor and director of music theatre. The guest dramaturg for the production is Buffalo-based author and artist-filmmaker Annette Daniels Taylor.

Tickets for performances in the Center for the Arts are $20 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are $5 for performances in the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

Purchase tickets online.