School of Dance Welcomes Guest Artists
The School of Dance welcomed some very special guests this week! Esteemed artists Charles Anderson, Omar Carrum, and Susan Jaffe are on campus staging works for the upcoming Performing Dance Company and Utah Ballet performances, as well as holding workshops and master classes.
Charles Anderson is in residency conducting workshops and discussions on diversity, inclusivity, equality and justice, in addition to setting a new work for PDC and Utah Ballet.
Charles O. Anderson, a native of Richmond, Virginia, is the head of the dance program and producing artistic director of the B.F.A. dance company, Dance Repertory Theatre at The University of Texas at Austin as well as artistic director of the critically-acclaimed afro-contemporary dance theatre company, dance theatre X (founded in 2003). He received his M.F.A. in Dance from Temple University (2002) in Philadelphia where he lived previously. Among his achievements in afro-contemporary choreography and dance theatre, Anderson was selected as one of "25 Artists to watch" by Dance Magazineand is a Pew Fellowship in the Arts recipient. His choreography, set upon undergraduate students, has been nationally showcased twice at the John f. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts through the American College Dance Association and he has also been recognized for outstanding achievement in experimental dance theatre by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
Renowned dancer, choreographer teacher and video maker, Omar Carrum is setting work on our students for the upcoming Performing Dance Company Concert.
Carrum joined DELFOS danza contemporánea as a founding member from 1993 to 2017. He has received two times The National Dance Award as performer and Choreographer and seven grants by FONCA (National and State Funds for Culture and Arts in Mexico). In 2009 he became the first Mexican choreographer to receive the GUGGENHEIM fellowship, in 2014 he becomes a member of SNCA (the National System of Arts Creators) and from 2018 to 2020 he receives the Grant as a Creator/interpreter with trajectory from FONCA, which are two of the most important recognition for artists in Mexico. His short film Fifth Wall, co-directed with Dutch Rall was selected by the Short Film Corner in CANNES (2013), and by Agite y Sirva (2014). Faculty member of the Bates Dance Festival since 2010.
Susan Jaffe is n campus re-staging a work entitled Carmina Terra, for the upcoming Utah Ballet Concert
Recognized as one of the leading ballerinas of her time, Ms. Jaffe has performed in many Opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. In 1980, at the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, she joined American Ballet Theatre and became well known in the dance world at an extremely young age. Her debut in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center was made when she was plucked from the corps for the 1980 opening night season to dance opposite recently defected Alexander Godunov in the pas de deux, Pas d’Esclave, from Le Corsaire. Since then, she has received critical praise for her interpretations of such roles as: Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Kitri (Don Quixote), Nikiya & Gamzatti (La Bayadere), Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Swanhilda (Coppelia), Tatiana (John Cranko’s Eugene Onegin), Kate (Taming of the Shrew), and the title roles in Giselle, La Sylphide, & Kenneth MacMillan’s Anastasia and Manon.
Ms. Jaffe has also worked with and performed the repertoire of many of the 20th century’s most prominent choreographers, including George Balanchine (Apollo, Mozartiana, Who Cares, Theme & Variations, Ballet Imperial, Violin Concerto, La Sonnambula, Bourree Fantasque), Anthony Tudor (Jardin aux Lilas, Undertow, Gala Performance, Dim Lustre), Kenneth MacMillan (Manon, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, Requiem), Jerome Robbins (Afternoon of a Faun, Other Dances, N.Y. Opus Jazz), Roland Petit (Carmen), Twyla Tharp (Push Comes to Shove, Everlast, Sextet, How Near Heaven, Bach Partita, Americans We, Known By Heart), Nacho Duato (Without Words), Jiri Kilyan (Stepping Stones) and James Kudelka (Cruel World, States of Grace).
Ms. Jaffe’s European engagements have included performances with The Royal Ballet, The Kirov Ballet, The Stuttgart Ballet, The Munich State Opera Ballet, La Scala Ballet in Milan, The Vienna State Opera Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Swedish Ballet, and The English National Ballet.
In 2003 she hosted Dance New York, a weekly local TV show co-produced by Dance Magazine and WNYE-TV Channel 25. Other television and film appearances include several Dance in America programs, Angie with Geena Davis (1994), and Ballet, a documentary directed by Frederick Wiseman (1995).
One month after her retirement from American Ballet Theatre, Ms. Jaffe was invited back for the position of the advisor to the Chairman and the President of the Board of Governing Trustees. She also serves as the artistic coordinator of the Youth America Grand Prix, and the Chairman of the Artists Committee of “The All-Stars,” a group that helps underprivileged children develop learning skills through performance. On September 8, 2005, Ms. Jaffe & Ms. Risa Gary Kaplowitz founded the Princeton Dance & Theatre Studio in Princeton, New Jersey.