Jazz, dance to light up UB Sesqui Gala: Top performers in 'Step into My Dream'

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

The performance, titled "Step into My Dream," will be a superb program of improvisational jazz and dance developed and presented by two of the country's preeminent performance groups. They are the Parsons Dance Company, one of the hottest tickets in American Dance, and The Billy Taylor Trio, a jazz ensemble headed by one of the nation's great jazz musicians and educators, a winner of the nation's highest award for distinguished accomplishments in the arts.

The show begins at 8 p.m. on the Mainstage in the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus. It will be followed by a reception and 150th birthday party for the university.

Tickets are $24, $20 and $16. They are available at the Center for the Arts box office (645-ARTS) and at all Ticketmaster locations (Kaufmann's, Movies Plus and Music Plus stores). The performance is sponsored by the UB Sesquicentennial Committee and the Center for the Arts.

What can we look forward to here? In a word or two, the superb choreographic work of David Parsons, hailed as one of the most promising choreographers of his generation, coupled with the improvisational jazz of Dr. Billy Taylor, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts plus an impressive array of honorary degrees in recognition of his contributions to American music and music education.

The nine-member Parsons Dance Com pany is a relatively new one, founded in 1987, and internationally recognized for excellent work. It has performed in some of the most prestigious venues in the world from Rio's Teatro Municipal to Lincoln Center; to the accompaniment of kudos from critics and audiences alike.

"...Terrific performers, energized, eager to please and rehearsed to within an inch of their lives," wrote the Toronto Star.

Called by the Rome Republica, the "heir of Nureyev and Baryshnikov," Parsons is distinguished by its exuberant wit, high energy, athleticism, rich dance vocabulary and by the choreographer's keen eye for the theatrical.

His choreography is included in the repertories of the celebrated Paul Taylor Dance Company, the American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Feld Ballets/NY, The National Ballet of Canada and Nederlands Dans Theater I and III, among others.

In addition to a repertoire of more than 30 works by Parsons, his company is widely recognized for its community outreach activities, including master classes video workshops, lecture/demonstrations and seminars.

Billy Taylor's more than 50 years in music have been lived through the history of the jazz he plays and discusses. He maintains a busy touring schedule with the Billy Taylor Trio while serving as artistic advisor for jazz for the Kennedy Performing Arts Center, and hosting a new weekly National Public Radio program, "Billy Taylor's Jazz from the Kennedy Center."

He has spent more than 15 years as jazz correspondent for "Sunday Morning" on ABC TV, for which he won an Emmy Award. He augments his trio performances with a wide variety of projects that have found him performing with symphony orchestras, the Turtle Island Spring Quartet and the Parsons Dance Company.

Taylor has received many distinguished honors, including two Peabodys and the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Masters award.