Sounds and Silences
May 15 to 17, 2008

"Thousands of hours are spent acquiring the physical skills necessary to dance, but few dancers spend even a dozen hours learning about music.  An understanding of music is not obtained by osmosis nor by following the beat of a stick.  It is a delicate, difficult and lovely subject, and must be wooed with as much ardor as you would devote to turnout and extensions."
- Paul Draper

About The Project

The team of artists working with Young Dance company members in 07-08 includes Gretchen Pick, Kaori Kenmotsu, Sarah Jacobs, Justin Jones, Kate Lynch, Maria Gomez Tierney, and Leslie Ball. With this team of artists, dancers will be developing skills in dance technique, improvisation and choreography as well as collaboration with musicians.

Sounds and Silences, will feature dances created by professional choreographers as well as our emerging artists of Young Dance. The dancers will be exploring the performance of both set choreography and structured improvisations. Some dances will highlight our graduating class of seniors, while other dances will show the unique relationships that blossom when older and younger dancers work together.

Company members will use their choreographic and improvisation skills to create dances in collaboration with the musicians. Kate Lynch, an accomplished dancer and musician will work with a group of dancers facilitating a group choreography project. She then will introduce them to her computer based sound system. The dancers will participate in composing the music to accompany their dance. Through this process the dancers will create a statement, in both music and dance, that is uniquely their own.

Leslie Ball, a celebrated Twin Cities singer/songwriter will write original music to accompany some of the dances being created by our Artistic Director and senior dancers. We are excited to have her join us for our performance of Sounds and Silences this May.  

With our year-long workshops, Young Dance aims to introduce our dancers to a broad range of perspectives on how choreography and art impacts community. Dancers work at an age specific level on a given focus each year. In recent years dancers have worked with story tellers and journalists to explore the ways in which dance helps to share the stories hidden in our community. With Sounds and Silences, in 07-08, the dancers will be learning another language that is closely related with dance. The result is a rich dialogue, between musicians, dancers, and ultimately our audience, about what is expressed on stage. Young Dance presents young people as developing artists who have something important to say.

Sounds and Silences is a special project made possible by a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC).