The UWM Peck School of the Arts Dance Department launches its fifth
season of summer dance in June. The summer season includes Summerdances
(June 25-27) one of two annual faculty concerts, and Dancemakers (July
30-31), two evenings of work by the professional dancers and
choreographers who travel to Milwaukee each summer to pursue graduate
degrees in dance. All concerts take place in the Mainstage Theatre, 2400
East Kenwood Boulevard on the UWM campus. Tickets for Summerdances are
$16/$9 for students and seniors and tickets for Dancemakers are $8/$5
for students and seniors. For tickets or further information, please
call the Peck School of the Arts Box Office at (414) 229-4308.

Summerdances opens June 25 at 7:30 pm and will be repeated June 26 at
7:30 pm and June 27 at 3 pm. An informal reception follows the Friday
evening performance. This summers concert will introduce new faculty
member Darci Wutz and will feature a premiere by faculty member Simone
Ferro and an excerpt of a work by New York-based choreographer and
MacArthur genius award winner Susan Marshall. Marshall will offer an
Open Forum on Creative Process on Sunday, June 20 at 1 PM in Mitchell
Hall, 3203 North Downer Avenue (Room 254). The forum is free and open to
the public.

Wutz, who joined the faculty in the fall, will offer two works:
Isolation en Masse, a tap piece for eleven women, 22 white tap shoes,
and some high-powered flashlights, and Encounter, a jazz sextet. In
Encounter, three men and three women explore sexual attraction in a
series of trios and duets. Wutz holds a BFA in Theatre with a dance
emphasis from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and an MFA in Dance
Performance and Choreography from Smith College. Before joining the
faculty at UWM, Wutz taught at UMD, Smith, Mount Holyoke and Alverno and
served as director of dance in the Department of Performing Arts at
Marquette University. Her choreography credits include more than 30
productions, many of them in musical theatre, at the local, regional,
and national level. In Milwaukee, Wutzs work has been seen at
performances by virtually every theatre company including the Milwaukee
Rep, Skylight Opera Theatre, Sunset Playhouse, and Milwaukee
Shakespeare. Wutz teaches tap, jazz and musical theatre styles at UWM.
She was recently awarded a UWM Graduate School Research award to develop
a musical theatre performance project for the 2004-2005 season.

Simone Ferros Tangle Grosso is a collaboration with composer Josh
Schmidt and filmmaker Shuling Hsieh. The large ensemble dance for 15 is
based on the Argentine tango, but mixes modern vocabulary with authentic
tango steps. According to Ed Burgess, chair of the Dance Department,
Unique footwork, partnering, gender reversal, melodrama, innuendo,
sensuality, and the powerful rhythms of the tango form are celebrated in
a rich tapestry. Ferro, a native of Brazil, has just completed her
third year on the UWM faculty. She had a notable career as a dancer and
choreographer in Latin America and Europe before receiving an MFA in
Choreography from the University of Iowa. Ferro recently appeared with
Wild Space Dance Company at Turner Hall and will participate as a
performer and choreographer in Mixed Six at Danceworks in August.

The excerpt from Susan Marshalls The Most Dangerous Room in the House
is the culmination of a year-long project with Marshalls company,
supported in part by a grant from the National College Choreography
Initiative (a joint project of Dance/USA and the National Endowment for
the Arts). In October, the Peck School of the Arts welcomed the New
York-based Susan Marshall and Company for a residency and performance of
Marshalls newest work, Sleeping Beauty and Other Stories. Two members
of Marshalls company returned for two weeks in April to set this
signature work on the UWM Dance students and to offer classes and
workshops on campus and at the studios of Milwaukee Ballet. Susan
Marshall will return to Milwaukee in June to prepare the piece for
performance. While in town, she will offer a workshop on the creative
process for members of the local dance community as well as the Open
Forum on Creative Process on June 20.

At the end of July, the Dance Department will offer its fourth formal
concert of graduate student work, Dancemakers, July 30 and 31 at 7:30
PM. UWM has offered an M.F.A. degree in dance since 1997, and has
attracted more than its share of noted professionals to the program,
among them Allyson Green and Hetty King. As the program has grown, the
balance has shifted toward graduate students with a primary interest in
choreography for the concert stage, and Dancemakers has become a natural
conclusion to the intensive summer program. This summer, the volume of
workprimarily by established choreographers currently pursuing an
advanced degree at UWMis large enough to sustain two different concert
programs. As has become traditional, there will also be a showing of
works-in-progress on Sunday, August 1 at 2 pm in the Mainstage Theatre.

Among the students in this summers program who will offer work are New
York-based choreographer/performers Clare Byrne, of Clare Byrne Dance;
Sara Baird of Anemone Dance Theatre; Aviva Geismar of Drastic Action;
Mary Cochran (formerly of the Paul Taylor Dance Company); and Molly
Rabinowitz. Rodger Belman, also based in New York, will be offering a
part of his thesis project, a reconstruction of Yvonne Rainers
Chair/Pillow, and Catey Ott, recently returned from a decade in New
York, will restore a solo created for another dancer. Other
choreographers include Hilary Bryan of Frank and Bryan Worldwide Movers,
Oakland, CA; Peggy Choy of the UW Madison dance faculty; and Joyce
Dohnal who teaches in Kenosha. Guest artist Barbara Grubel, who recently
joined the faculty at UW-Whitewater, will teach modern dance technique
and will set a piece on the graduate students while in residence at UWM.