Dance concert to premiere new works from Bay Area choreographers

Stanford's annual Spring Migration dance concert will showcase newly commissioned works in a rich variety of forms: contemporary ballet; modern, urban and hip-hop and hybrid styles; Mexican folklórico dance; and collaborations between dance, live video and percussion. The program is scheduled for 8 p.m. May 4-6 in Roble Studio Theater.

Spring Migration 2007 will spotlight works from Bay Area choreographers, including Brittany Brown Ceres, founder of Dance Ceres; Stanford alumna Hope Mohr, who is returning to the Bay Area after performing in New York for eight years; and Alex Ketley, artistic director of The Foundry and a former dancer with San Francisco Ballet. It also will feature works by dance faculty members Tony Kramer and Aleta Hayes and students Verónica Ramírez and Katherine Rubos.

This year's program will feature the premiere of Under the Skin, a dance and video collaboration by Mohr and Emmy-nominated videographer Douglas Rosenberg. It blends images and poetry from patients at Stanford Hospital, and includes dancers as well as Palo Alto cancer survivors. (Following the May 5 performance, the audience will have a chance to talk with the artistic/medical collaborators, dancers and community performers.)

"Medical imagery tends to fragment us from our own bodily experience. There is a gulf between what we see in the X-ray and the story we carry inside," according to Mohr. The experience underscores the "disconnect" women already feel with the cultural images of their bodies and reality, she said. "Often in the medical context we must remain silent and still as we are exposed.

"To give voice to the human side of healing, I facilitated a process in which these women's bodies could speak for themselves from the inside out," she said. "You are witness to their confrontations with mortality. You are witness as they affirm life."

Performances will begin each evening at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 Stanford faculty and staff, $10 senior citizens and $5 students with ID. For questions or to request a wheelchair seat, e-mail dramatickets@stanford.edu or call (650) 725-5838. All seating is general admission; tickets are available at the door (beginning at 7 p.m. the night of performance) and in advance online at http://dance.stanford.edu/.

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