Do Bananas
Float?
Masks, Colors,
Music: Power!
Everyone dressed colorfully for this exploration of the power that music, masks and colors have held over all peoples of all times.
We enjoyed the ritualistic through the down and funky - mixing and matching history in wild scenarios.
The performance grew from a collaboration based on the study of African music and its influence on dance, in particular modern dance. Collaborators with Mary Miller were Anicet Mundundu, African ethnomusicologist, jazz musician and director of Jambo, a troupe performing African music and dance, and Cyd Pennington, percussionist, along with members of Jambo! Performances by the Mary Miller Dance Company and guest artists Mr. Mundundu and members of Jambo. (More about Mr. Mundundu below.)
Live music and live dance!
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Results of the Mask Competition for Students
The following students' masks appeared in
Do Bananas Float?:
Kevin Bechman, Lee Eisner, Alex Vogel, and Anthony Brooks
from Paul Noro's art class at O'Hara Elementary School
Dan Danyo, Patti Kitiko, and Nicole M. Hoebler
from Paul Homison's art class at Brentwood High School.
A Brief Biography of Anicet M. Mundundu 
This program was funded in part by the Multi-Cultural Arts Initiative jointly funded
by The Pittsburgh Foundation and Howard Heinz Endowment.
The Mary Miller Dance Company received funding for the 2002-2003 season
from the United States Steel Foundation, the Roy A. Hunt Foundation,
and the PA Council on the Arts -- a state
agency funded by the Commonwealth of PA
and the National Endowment for the
Arts, a federal agency.
Additional support came from Mellon Financial Corporation Foundation and Sony Corporation.
Graceful Light in
Weightless Darkness
Mary Miller Dance Company
Premiered at the Kelly-Strayhorn Performing Arts
Center, East Liberty,
April 12-13, 2002;
Educational Matinee 2003
February 12, 2003, 10:00
a.m.
Byham Theater, Downtown Pittsburgh
Graceful Light in Weightless Darkness, the Mary Miller Dance Company’s groundbreaking fusion of choreographed movement, light and computer technology, premiered at the Kelly-Strayhorn Performing Arts Center April 12-13, 2002.
Graceful Light in Weightless Darkness represents the Mary Miller Dance Company’s groundbreaking fusion of choreographed movement, light and computer technology, which premiered at the Kelly-Strayhorn Performing Arts Center on April 12-13, 2002.
A collaboration among Ms. Mary Miller as choreographer and Garth Zeglin, Ph.D., researcher in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who created the costume-borne technology, costume designer Ms. Venise St. Pierre, who incorporated the computers, sensors and lights into costuming which responds to the dancers, and lighting designer Mr. Adam Koe Leong, who enhances the creation with expressive ambient light, this work exemplifies utilization of state-of-the-art technology as a medium of expression.
The dancers wear computers, motion sensors, LEDs and fiberoptics within their costumes. This piece is an exploration of people and technology: it embodies the question as to whether technology is enveloping us or whether we are free to use it as an expositive medium, whether we feel controlled by it or can take pleasure in it.
As a Home Season presentation, the production was successful and received acclaim in local media. It is particularly well suited to educational matinee format, as it contains elements of art, dance, performance, science, technology, and sociological concepts – all worthy student focuses – to create an overall broadening experience.
“Light has always had a strong affect on people,” says dancer/choreographer Mary Miller. “The sight of it literally lightens one’s senses. It transports the imagination and inspires the creation of fantasies.” And she knows the importance of lighting dancers for performance. She once choreographed a piece in which she gave the audience creative authority in the illumination of her work by distributing flashlights at the start of the piece (Winter, 1996).
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The
Mary Miller Dance Company,
Choreography
by Mary Miller,
Lighting
Design by Adam Koe Leong,
Costume Technology
by Garth Zeglin,
Costume
Design by Venise St. Pierre,
Photos
by Audrey N. Glickman.
“I have always been attracted to light in dark spaces – candlelight in a dark room, stars in a night sky, the thrill of turning the corner and finding a city street awash in small bright lights on trees or buildings. It’s uplifting.” Miller wants the choreography in her new work, Graceful Light in Weightless Darkness, to be more than shapes and forms of movement; she wants the movement to be a source of light, as well, expressing human thoughts, feelings and senses.
Her curiosity about the interplay between dancers’ bodies and the generation of light began in 1998 when she created a work that utilized costumes with lights and mini generators built into them. Garth Zeglin, Ph.D., researcher in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, has created the costume-borne technology, costume designer Ms. Venise St. Pierre has incorporated the computers, sensors and lights into costuming which responds to the dancers, and lighting designer Mr. Adam Koe Leong enhances the creation with expressive ambient light. The dancers exhibit extreme athletic ability in controlling their every muscle movement to create light.
Just as we are surrounded by light, we are surrounded by technology, and they both have psychological influence on us and power over us; yet we have the power to use them as tools, to control them, toward the common good and to ends as far as our imagination can reach.
This program was funded in part by The A. W. Mellon Educational & Charitable Trust Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, the United States Steel Foundation, the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, and by the PA Council on the Arts -- a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of PA and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
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FALL 2002 HOME SEASON PRESENTATION, October 10-12, 2002,
Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts Center,
East Liberty, Pittsburgh, Pa.
HEARTSONGS (November 1992)
HEARTSONGS is a
celebration from the heart. It reflects the happiness brought about
by the
music of the voices of Ladysmith Black Mombazo.
WINTER (April 1996)
A look at the state of society, the economy, and the arts. A small portion of the audience
is responsible for what the entire audience gets to see.
Reality to the fullest!
Bedsheets
in the Wind (Premiere)
A breezy journey of memory through the tangibility of bed linens.
This
program was funded in part by the United States Steel Foundation, the Roy A. Hunt Foundation,
and by the PA Council on the Arts -- a state
agency funded by the Commonwealth of PA
and the National Endowment for the
Arts, a federal agency.
Contributions by the Audience Development Fund of the Mellon Financial Corporation Foundation and Sony Corporation.
The Mary Miller Dance Comany welcomes all donations, which are tax deductible to the full extent provided by law.
The
mission of the Mary Miller Dance Company is to create, develop and present
modern dance works
that reflect on our daily life and today’s social,
psychological and political issues;
to serve the community at large – including
all populations – by offering classes and performance opportunities to
students.
We are a diverse organization, and a not-for-profit corporation.
Information about
the current season of Mary Miller Dance Company
Information about
Educational Outreach Available from the Mary Miller Dance Company
Information on the Byham Theater
For more information on the Mary Miller Dance Company, please phone 412.434.1169,
or email MaryMillerDanceCo@netzero.net.
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