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University Daily Kansan, October 16, 1981
Amateur dancers committed to the art
By DIANE MAKOVSKY Staff Reporter
BY DIANE MA Staff Reporter
It's an avocation with a time commitment of about 15 hours a week.
The avocation is dance and the commitment is to the Kaw Valley Dance Theater, which begins its third season this weekend with performances at 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights at Central Junior High School, 1400 Massachusetts so
Tickets are $3, but only $2.50 for students and senior citizens. Tickets will be available at the door.
Kristin Benjamin, artistic director and originator of the group, said earlier this week that the theater had a repertoire of both ballet and modern dance.
The group tries to use live music in its performances as well as incorporate other art forms in their shows, she said. Previous performances were often accompanied with one even accompanied by a costume exhibit.
"I have a strong desire to contribute to the community," Benjamina said. "And Lawrence
BENJAMIN PERFORMS, teaches and dances.
Being in Lawrence allows the theater to draw from the resources of the University, she said.
For example, the group will perform "Bluegrass Suite" by Kurt Symon. It is a modern dance that was choreographed by Willee Lenoir, a member of the University Dance Company.
Many of the dancers are KU students, Benjamin said.
Four of the original 10 members are still with the theater, Benjamin沙加, adding this was a good opportunity.
Members are picked after auditions, she said. In three seasons, the group has grown to a total of 18 members, which includes 4 men and 14 women.
She said the group hoped to tour Kansas if it received a grant from the Kansas Arts Commission. The decision about the grant approval is expected in three months.
ON DEC. 19, and the theater will perform the "Nutracker Suite" in collaboration with the Seen-to-Be-Players, a local group that prepares for children, and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra.
"That's a real exciting venture." Benjamin
had never knew so many 4-footers would
enjoy big jumps.
The show was cast last weekend.
This winter the group will also tour nine area schools.
"That's so much fun," Benjamin said. "Their reaction is so basic."
The group previously performed for schools a year and a half ago.
BENJAMIN'S GOALS for the theater are to build a larger audience and to get the dancers to take more performance risks, gaining more experience and better skills.
The theater already has a following from toppea, she said. The group's popularity endured in the 1980s.
Along with "Bluegrass Suite," the theater will perform "Lieberland Waltzes" by Brahms, choreographed by Benjamin. It is a series of love songs accompanied by Stephanie Hume, soprano; Johnathan Duncan, bassoon; Helen Hunte; late Jeffrey Norte, baritone; and Randy Bush and Shirley McKamie, pianists.
"Bluebird Pas de Deux" from "Sleeping Beauty" by Tchaikovsky and "Concerto for Harp" by Hayden, choreographed by Sherry Monroe from Wichita, are two more ballet dances scheduled.
Other modern dances on the program include "Night Mood!" by Bela Bartok and "Spirituals" by John DuPree.
Hill's 'symphony of horror' hits occasional sour notes
By ERLEEN CHRISTENSEN Contributing Reviewer
"Dracula: a Symphony of Horror Written and Directed by Gregory Hill
The familiar story of the English solicitor's clerk who journeys to Transylvania to close a real estate deal with Count Dracula unfolds slowly on the stage of the University Theatre.
Behind a gauzy curtain which stays in place throughout the room, the set has the dreamy atmosphere. Key materials: Velvet. Key materials: Velvet.
That set is the most striking feature of the play. On it, Gregory Hill, director and
Review
dinner and a protracted contract-signing are finally followed by an action-packed vampire scene with dialouge in Czech—a most welcome change of pace.
All three acts start slowly although they close dramatically. In the first act, a long
playwright, arranges his characters in charming visual tableaux, groups of two or three people dwarfed by a setting which creates an optical illusion of great space. Through and above a huge, arched window, the visual drama of moonlight, sunrise and bellowing fog sometimes provide more action than the slow-moving script.
The play follows Bram Stoker's novel quite closely, with an off-stage narrator reading from the journals of the solicitor Harker, his wife and Dr. Seward in order to provide transitional narration between the staged scenes. Hill uses titles projected onto the stage, and these brief includes a technique which gives a movie-like quality to the production.
The play itself seems to owe quite a bit to Werner Herzog's movie version of the legend, Nosferatu. An extended musical introduction, moody and Wagnerian, is effective in both movie and play, as the portrayal of Dracula as an elderly and weary figure.
Rusty Laushman transforms Dracula from a lonely old man clipping almost pathetically to his English guest to a tall, dramatic and fearful Dracula in the course of less than a scene. David Douglas and Craig Swanson are convincing as the two doctors.
Overall, what sets out to be “a symphony of horror” too often degenerates into unintentional screaming on the head bits of Dracula lore and familiar tags and pieces from the horror show tradition.
TODAY
AIKIDO DANCE MASTER CLASS, with Koichi Kashiwaya, will be at 3 p.m. in the Robinson Center Dance Studios.
TOMORROW
on campus
p.m. in the Lawrence Jewish Community Center,
911 Highland Drive.
It is also home of the Court Dance Theater and Music from Okawa who will be performing at the University of Kansas Friday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m. in Swarthout Recital Hall.
Andrew Tsubaki, professor of theater and director of the International Theatre Studies, hopes the group will provide an opportunity for Japanese culture apart from the war experience.
Okinawa, an island south of Japan, is best known to Americans for terrible battles during World War II and as an Air Force base during the Vietnam War.
Okinawan group to present Japanese dance
RECREATION SERVICES RACQUETBALL DOUBLES PLAY will begin at 1:15 p.m. in the Robinson Center Racquetball Courts.
"I hope people will take this opportunity to see the other side of Okinawa," said Tsubaki yesterday. "One that is gentle, gracious and pretty."
THE CHESS AND BACKGAMMON CLUB will meet at 10 a.m. in Alove D of the Union.
IOHN EISELE/Kansan Staff
THE BIOLOGY CLUB will meet at 4 p.m. in
The Court Dance Theater and Music from Okinawa, an 18-member troupe, will be performing dances originally created for the court and performed by members of the samurai class. But, from 1880 on, professionals started performing outside the palace.
Tsukaki explained that the dance and music of Okinawa reflected the island's traditional role as a cultural crossroads for Asian art. The dances from China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia, from China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia,
The dances are accompanied by music and chanting. The musical instruments used are the sashin, which is similar to the Japanese shamisen, a three-stringed, banjo-like instrument; the 13-stringed koto, a lute-like instrument; the taiko, a drum made with cowhide or horsehide; the kokuyu, a fiddle with a snakekin body and a bamboo flute.
The costumes used in the performance are hand-dyed in the traditional manner, Tsubaki said, and are complemented by hand crafted props.
This will be the group's first tour of the North American continent.
Fifty to 100 harpists and harp affionados from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma and Colorado will descend on Murphy Hall Saturday and Sunday. They will be observing and taking part in the first Midwestern Regional Harp Conference.
Members of the Kaw Valley Dance theater prepare for this weekend's performances in the Central Junior High School Auditorium, 14th and Massachusetts streets.
The conference will be from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m.
It will start at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. It will be free and open the next day.
Attending the conference will be elementary, high school and college harp students, college instructors and professional harpists.
There will be a recital at 8 p.m. Saturday in Swarthout Recital Hall of a 22-harp ensemble.
"Composing for Harp" and a folk harp workshop
"Cumpliment demonstrations of Paraguayan and
Gullah music."
Harpists gather for conference
Some of the workshops offered will include "Preparing for Auditions and Competitions,"
Also attending the conference will be Harvi Griffin, a well-known harpist who plays classical to calypso and has performed 28 times at the White House during the last three administrations. He will be conducting a workshop at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Schedules for the conference will be available at registration at 9 a.m. Saturday in the lobby of the building.
HILLEL will present Israeli folk dancing at 9
arts calendar
Music
The Morrells will perform at 9 p.m. today tomorrow to announce a Lawrence Opera House, 642 Elm Street St.
The Midwestern Regional Harp Conference
will be held all day today and tomorrow in
Missouri.
The KU Jazz Ensembles II and III will perform at 8 p.m. Monday in Swarthout Rectal Hall. No admission charge.
Dance
The Court Dance Theater and Music from Okinawa will perform today at 8 p.m. today in Swarthout Recital Hall. Admission is $3.
The Kaw Valley Dance Theater will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Central Junior High auditorium, 14th and Massachusetts streets. Admission is $3 for adults, $2.50 for senior citizens and $2 for children.
Theatre
"Dracula," a new play by Gregory Hill, professor of the theatre, will be performed at 8 p.m. today and tomorrow and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the University Theatre. Admission is free on today and tomorrow, and $4, $5 and $2 Sunday. Student tickets are half price with a KUID.
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'WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE?'
Psalm 2:1 and Acts 4:25
The knowledge of God, or lack of it, has to do with our Eternal Life, or eternal death! God says "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," and "He
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge. I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten The Law of Thy God, I will also forget thy children!" Hoses 4:6.
Our land is also filled with stelling, lying and covetousness. If this writer's appraisal is correct even many of the laws of our nation and states encourage its people to covet that which in God's sight might be another instead of a man's. God will make the fallen man live by "the sweat of his own brow." We are trying to run over Almighty God Himself!" And in order to make peace with men who deny and blaspheme The God we claim to serve, we turn and make war on God himself! SHALL WE HAVE PEACE WITH MAN BY MAKING WAR ON GOD ALMIGHTY? Was it not Bill Shakespeare who said: "What foolies these mortals
Weigh these words! It is a terrible message of judgment! Destroyed on account of "lack of knowledge" or ignorance. Rejection and ignorance of "The Law of Our God!" The results; they shall be no priest to God, and God will forget their children, seeing they have forgotten "The Law of Thy God!"
— Protestantism gives us the true teaching of God's Word that every sincere believer is a priest unto his God. We have not forgotten "The Law of Our God!" We "breach The Sabbath" and destroy "the goods of God!" We mock and scorn His Laws regarding the home, marriage and sex relations. Our land is lousy with murderers, and yet quite a number of our states have decided that The Almighty did not know what He was talking about when He said:
"Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death — Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of murder."
For the sake of the children we should not forget the "Law of Our God!"
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