Center for the Arts

Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: A busy week in WNY

This week, Chicago-based dance pioneer Billy Siegenfeld and his dancers spent time with the Western New York community teaching master classes to UB dance students, performing at area schools, and bringing their high energy joy to patients, families, and caregivers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.  Luckily, he already had a connection - dancer Amanda Benzin is an Orchard Park native and a UB dance alumna.

Amanda attended Holy Angels Academy and danced and taught at Mary Alice’s Dance Studio in Orchard Park. She graduated summa cum laude as a Renaissance Scholar from the University at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a minor in Business Administration. During her time at UB, she performed with the celebrated Zodiaque Dance Company and the Zodiaque Studio Dance Ensemble. Throughout her career, Amanda has studied all forms of dance under many renowned teachers and choreographers, but after her first exposure to JRJP in their annual Chicago intensive, she was hooked. She is now in her fifth year as a performing and teaching artist with the company. As a company member with JRJP, she has performed and taught the renowned Jump Rhythm Technique at universities, schools and dance studios nationally and internationally. She received an Emmy Award as “Outstanding Achievement for Individual Excellence On Camera: Performer” for her work in the multiple Emmy-Award-winning documentary Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, produced by HMS Media and aired on PBS. 

The company also spent some time performing at Amherst Middle School and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.  Here is a video of part of the performance from RPCI's atrium:

The real icing on the cake for this week was the performance this evening, which began with Mr. Siegenfeld himself engaging the audience in a little rhythmic scat-singing and improvised noises.

The company then joined him onstage for the first piece "I Hear Music."

The entire dance series has been made possible by a major sponsorship from M&T Bank.  This week's residency activities have been funded in part by the UB Dance Alumni Concert and a grant from the Amherst Arts and Culture in Public Places Board. 

Arts in Healthcare training has started

The Arts in Healthcare initiative is a program established by the Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo to bring the performing and visual arts into healthcare settings at Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Twelve Western New York professional artists have been selected to begin training as artists-in-residence in Women and Children's Hospital and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.� This week, the Center welcomes these artists for an intensive training session to prepare them for the work they'll be doing in the hospitals.�

HT Chen & Dancers to be dance artists in residence

For the past ten years, the Center for the Arts has extended the reach of the performing arts into the Western New York community. Each year, one or two professional dance companies from New York City have been invited to work (“in residence”) at the Center for the Arts for one to three weeks.

During this time, the dance company takes part in as many as 40 outreach projects that provide arts education for public schools primarily in the City of Buffalo and Niagara Falls at no cost to the schools. To date, more than 20,000 students have had an opportunity, in their own school’s auditorium or gymnasium, to experience live professional dance performances by some of finest dance companies of our time.

This significant commitment by the Center is part of a focused, ongoing community service effort. Public school students typically receive less exposure to dance than any other professional performing art form. Through these important outreach exchanges, the Center hopes to nurture interest in dance, as well as develop future audiences.

This March 2008, New York City based HT Chen & Dancers will be in residence at the Center for the Arts. This innovative modern dance company has created a uniquely Asian-American expression by embodying its cultural heritage. The Company’s dynamic technique, which infuses Western modern dance with the strength and beauty of Asian aesthetics, has enchanted audiences across the United States, Europe and Asia since 1978.

Cultural education programs can simply entertain, or they can educate and provide an experience that encourages audiences to grow. HT Chen & Dancers’ lecture/demonstrations de-mystify the process of choreography while providing an education about Chinese history and culture.

Modern dance, martial arts, and traditional Chinese classical dance are all expressive tools that are used to give poetic voice to some of Hsueh-Tung Chen’s vision. Each of these forms of movement has its own unique characteristics and contributions to make to the dance production. Martial arts and classical Chinese dance are based on ten elements of movement - five inner elements: discipline, concentration, spirit, strength and flow of energy (physically represented in breathing); and five outer elements: hands and wrist, eyes, torso, steps, and coordination.

Modern dance is an art form that developed in the United States in the 20th century. This courageous form of dance breaks with tradition by developing new ways of thinking and moving based on individual creativity and vision. The spirit of modern dance is found in the choreographer, and each choreographer is unique. Unlike martial arts or classical Chinese dance, in modern dance there are no rules or traditions that the choreographer must follow.

A Celebration of Tibetan Culture

Tibetan lamas from the Drepung Loseling Monastery perform the sacred art of laying millions of grains of sand in the unique and exquisite art form of Mandala sand painting.  The sand mandala will be on view until 7:00pm tonight, and will end with a closing ceremony prior to the lecture by His Holiness the Dalai Lama tomorrow.

The lamas, Tibetan monks in exile, support themselves by offering performances and selling Tibetan merchandise - handmade jewelry, peace flags, home decor, sand-painting tools and more are available for sale in the Center lobby. 

According to their website: "Drepung Monastery was established near Lhasa, Tibet in 1416 by Chojey Tashi Palden. It had four departments, of which Loseling, or "The Hermitage of the Radiant Mind," was the largest, housing more than three quarters of Drepung's ten to fifteen thousand monks. Drepung Loseling was especially close to the Dalai Lama incarnations; the Second Dalai Lama made his residence here in 1494, and subsequent incarnations maintained this link.

After the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet in 1959 and the forced closure and destruction of its 6,500 monasteries, some 250 monks from Loseling managed to escape the holocaust and rebuild their institution in Karnataka State, South India. The traditional training program was thus preserved. Over the years many more young spiritual aspirants have fled Chinese-occupied Tibet and sought entrance into the monastery, thus helping to preserve their traditional culture. The number of monks presently in the re-established Drepung Loseling has increased to more than 2,500."

Learn more about the Mystical Arts of Tibet at: http://www.mysticalartsoftibet.org/

The lamas of the Drepung Loseling Monastery perform the Mystical Arts of Tibet in conjunction with the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who participates in an interfaith religious ceremony today at 4pm. Visitors can purchase books published by Snow Lion Publishing company, provided by the University Bookstore.  The campus is decorated with over 5000 peace flags made by students, faculty, staff and visitors in preparation for the visit.

An exhibit of Tibetan artifacts is on display at the Mainstage Theatre.  Some of the items are on loan from local collectors, others are for sale by the Amitabha Foundation, which benefits displaced Tibetan refugees living in exile.  The Amitabha Foundation items are available for purchase at the UB Anderson Gallery, located on Martha Jackson Place near the UB South Campus.  More information on the Amhitaba Foundation can be found here:http://www.amitabhafoundation.org/

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR in Residence

The cast and crew of the new national tour of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, the original Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, are working in residence this week as they construct the set and rehearse the technical operations of the production.  SUPERSTAR premiers this Friday at 8pm. 

UB students in Theatre & Dance and Arts Management classes had the opportunity to have both hands-on master classes and Q&A sessions with the professionals on tour.  In the photo, Louanne Madorma, Assistant Choreographer, speaks to Professor Tressa Crehan's "Choreography 1" class.  Students also met with the Lighting Designer, Costume Designer, Musical Director, Chief Operations Officer, General Manager, and Director.

Roberta Roberts, General Manager of Troika Entertainment commented to one class, "This [the Center] is one of the most amazing spaces we have ever tech-ed in."

Tibetan Monks in Residency will Perform Sept. 17

Tickets on sale May 30 at 10:00am Buffalo, NY – The Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo will present Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing on Sunday, September 17 at 3:00pm in the Mainstage Theatre, located at the Center for the Arts, North Campus.  The performance is sponsored in part by the University at Buffalo.  Tickets are $15 for the general public and $10 for students and will go on sale May 30 at 10:00am.

The famed multiphonic singers of Tibet’s Drepung Loseling Monastery, whose sellout performances in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center received national acclaim, will perform Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing as part of their international tour of The Mystical Arts of Tibet. The Mystical Arts of Tibet tour is co-produced by Richard Gere Productions and Drepung Loseling Institute, the North American Seat of Drepung Loseling Monastery, India.

Endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tour has three basic purposes: to make a contribution to world peace and healing; to generate a greater awareness of the endangered Tibetan civilization; and to raise support for the Tibetan refugee community in India. The performance features multiphonic singing, wherein the monks simultaneously intone three notes of a chord. The Drepung Loseling monks are particularly renowned for this unique singing. They also utilize traditional instruments such as 10-foot long dung-chen horns, drums, bells, cymbals and gyaling trumpets. Rich brocade costumes and masked dances, such as the Dance of the Sacred Snow Lion, add to the exotic splendor.

The monks of Drepung Loseling have a very distinguished modern-day musical history. On past tours they have performed with Kitaro, Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Eddie Brickell, Natalie Merchant, Patti Smith, the Beastie Boys, and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, to name but a few. In addition, two of their recordings achieved top-10 listings on the New Age charts: Tibetan Sacred Temple Music (Shining Star Productions) and Sacred Tibetan Chants (Music and Arts Program of America, Inc.). Their most recent recording, Compassion (Milennia Music), pairs them with the Abbey of Gethsemani Schola in an encounter of Gregorian chant with Tibetan multiphonic singing.

Their music was featured on the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack of the film Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt (Columbia Pictures) and they performed with Philip Glass in Lincoln Center in the live presentation of his award-winning score to the Martin Scorsese film Kundun (Disney).

In response to the September 11 tragedies, they had the honor of creating special mandalas and leading prayer ceremonies and meditations in New York and Washington. Organized in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, these events were dedicated to the healing and protection of America. The Loseling monks have twice been featured artists at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, representing Tibetan culture, and in July 2003 enjoyed the rare honor of representing Tibet in the Cultural Olympiad of Greece, a pre-Olympic celebration of World Sacred Music and Dance. For this event the monks toured Greece and performed at venues that included the Acropolis and ancient Olympia, the historic site of the original Olympics.

The monks will be in residency from September 16 to 19, constructing (and deconstructing) a Mandala Sand Painting in the UB Gallery at the Center for the Arts.

For ticket information, please visit our website: www.ubcfa.org

An Intimate Engagement with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Hell's Kitchen Dance

International tour to premiere at the Center for the Arts in the intimate 388 seat Drama Theatre for four performances only

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Buffalo, NY –Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo presents Mikhail Baryshnikov and Hell’s Kitchen Dance, June 8-10 at 8:00pm and June 11 at 2pm in the Drama Theatre, located at the Center for the Arts, North Campus. 

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Hell’s Kitchen Dance go on the road for the first tour of works created at the newly opened, New York-based Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), featuring two world premieres by Aszure Barton’s, Over/Come and Come In, and a world premiere by Benjamin Millepied titled Years Later.  Both choreographers were named 2005-2006 Artists-in-Residence at the Center for their exceptional talents, and their work will be danced by Baryshnikov and Hell’s Kitchen Dance, an ensemble of young performers, mostly from The Juilliard School and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, who received fellowships from BAC for this occasion.

The Baryshnikov Arts Center, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s new artistic venture that opened its doors in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City in November 2005—is an international center for artistic experimentation and collaboration, which serves as a creative laboratory for emerging and mid-career artists from around the world and across all disciplines.  The Hell’s Kitchen Dance tour offers a first-time opportunity for national and international audiences to experience fresh talent, and the works created by artists selected by Baryshnikov and produced in the stimulating environment of BAC.

The world’s most celebrated dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, began his ballet study Vaganova School in Leningrad under the renowned teacher Alexander Pushkin. At 18, he entered the Kirov Ballet as a soloist and remained with the company from 1968 to 1974, when he left Russia. From 1974 to 1979, he danced with ballet and modern companies around the world. He was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet from 1979 to 1980, and from 1980 until 1989 he was Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre. From 1990 to 2002, Mr. Baryshnikov was director and dancer with the White Oak Dance Project, which he co-founded with choreographer, Mark Morris.  His most recent awards are the Kennedy Center Honors, The National Medal of Honor and the Commonwealth Award.

Elisa Monte Dance Residency

The Center for the Arts has commissioned Elisa Monte Dance for a dance residency in Buffalo from March 6 to 24, giving master classes and lecture-demonstrations to UB dance students and area schools including Buffalo Visual and Performing Arts High School, Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet School, Tonawanda Senior High School, Tapestry Charter School, and Buffalo School 45. These classes and performances are provided by the Center at no cost to the schools.

Check out our photo album!