St. Paul, Minn. – Macalester College Theatre and Dance Department showcases the work of nine student and faculty choreographers, and guest choreographer Vanessa Voskuil in “Beyond Control” at the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Main Stage Theatre, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul. Performances are at 7:30 p.m., December 10 and 11 and at 2 p.m., December 12. For ticket information, call 651-696-6359.

What are the repercussions of escaping the structures that restrain us? Do we actively struggle against containment, or does life spiral out of our control in joyful or disorienting ways? “Beyond Control” enters into a dialogue with the season theme, “Control and Contain,” presenting works that explore diverse mechanisms of containment, as well as unexpected strategies of resistance and expression. Faculty choreographer Sharon Varosh takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the glamour and burden of stardom in her group piece Astralia (set to Mozart’s variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”), while exploring the isolating limitations of physical affliction in her solo work. Faculty member Wynn Fricke likewise presents a Sisyphean image of containment—a struggling figure bound by a mask and box—in her solo piece A Small View, performed by Dmitri Peskov of Dmitri Peskov Dance Theatre in Chicago. Macalester student Alison Hoyer ’11 (Rochester, Minn.) breaks through linguistic structures with movement, engaging the distinct energies inherent to different parts of speech.

The concert features the work of guest artist Vanessa Voskuil, a choreographer, director, performer, and creator of performances, dances, films, and music theater. Until last year she served as a cofounding artistic director of Live Action Set, a physical theater performance group. In 2009, she received a McKnight Fellowship for Choreography. In her featured piece, Forthcoming, Vanessa explores moments of realization and discovery, grappling with existence in anticipation of the future and in the reflection of the present situation.

Faculty members Patricia Brown and Becky Heist, and students Alex Barnard ’12 (Golden Valley, Minn.), Faith Kwon ’11 (Rolling Hills, Calif.), and Alexis Ramirez’12 (Oakland, Calif.) also contribute their creative work.

Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,987 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement. For more information, visit macalester.edu.

November 23 2010

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