Meadows Presents 2019 Fall Dance Concert

DALLAS (SMU) – Three exciting contemporary works, including two newly created pieces by Ballet Dallas co-director Carter Alexander and award-winning jazz/tap artist Caleb Teicher, and a revival of Robert Battle’s 2001 Battlefield, will be presented at SMU Meadows School of the Arts’ Fall Dance Concert, November 13-17 in the Bob Hope Theatre at SMU.

The program opens with the premiere of Luisant by Carter Alexander, co-artistic director of Ballet Dallas and Meadows visiting artist-in-residence. The work, set to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, evokes a bygone era of entertainments in a Viennese palace garden. The contemporary ballet choreography is inspired by the formalizations and colorings of the Beethoven score, with the dancers moving in patterns that recall a glimmering fountain reflecting the light from a sunbeam on a warm fall day. Alexander’s creative blend of classical Balanchine with contemporary movement has won him accolades throughout the U.S. He is a former member of the Hartford, Kansas City and Pennsylvania ballet companies and has taught at dance schools across the country.

The concert continues with the premiere of Blues by Caleb Teicher, who’s been called “one of the tap world’s leading young artists” (Jacob’s Pillow Festival). Blues is a work about people – their joy, angst, frustrations and desires. The work takes an emotional journey as the dancers first deal individually with their feelings, then share these emotions with someone else, and ultimately find a sense of community in recognizing commonalities in their experiences.  Teicher, winner of Dance Magazine’s “Best Emerging Choreographer” Reader’s Choice Award, is known for his unique style of theatricality, humor, emotional expression and aesthetic exploration. Among other honors, he is a 2019 New York City Center Choreographic Fellow, a 2019 and 2011 Bessie Award winner, and a 2019 recipient of an NEA National Dance Project Production Grant. In September he was the featured artist on the cover of Dance Magazine, and his work has also been highlighted in such major media outlets as The New York Times, Vogue and NPR.

The program literally ends with a bang with a revival of Battlefield, a highly energetic work by Robert Battle set to a raucous percussion score composed by John Mackey and recorded by Les Tambours du Bronx. Battlefield combines contemporary modern dance and martial arts to portray an intense and ritualistic communal preparation for battle that is at once primal and urban. The dance celebrates the energy and power created when people gather together to confront an aggressor, and push each other to their physical limits. Both Battle and Mackey were specially commissioned by SMU to develop the work, thanks to a generous gift from Nancy B. Hamon; it premiered at the Meadows Fall Dance Concert in 2001, and remains one of Battle’s most enduring works, one that has exhilarated audiences worldwide. Battle is currently artistic director of the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and continues to choreograph works that are daring, visceral and highly explosive.

Fall Dance Concert performance times are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $14 for adults, $11 for seniors and $8 for students, SMU faculty and staff. The Bob Hope Theatre is located inside the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd. on the SMU campus. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 214-768-2787 or click here.