The Southern Theater presents There is an Elephant in This Dance 11/12-13

Trisha Brown Dance Company alumnus Lionel Popkin's vividly imagined and adroitly executed There is an Elephant in This Dance abounds with choreographic eloquence, clever direction and thematic layering. By turns funny, uncanny and disquieting, the work plays off an overlarge elephant costume to suggest how an individual body can hold multiple histories and align itself with divergent cultural identities. There is an Elephant in This Dance organically elicits a set of meanings both obvious and unspoken, from the pachyderm in religious iconography to expressions of interior personal space.

Crafted as a solo with a series of interruptions, Popkin's original impulse evovled from his own complicated connection to Ganesh, revered in the Hindu religion as the Remover of Obstacles. The choreographer's childhood home in Bloomington, Indiana, was filled with images of the deity, but as the son of a Jewish father and South Asian mother, Popkin recognized early on that its meanings were "always more complicated." In 2007 Popkin dove into this rich heritage, exploring the iconography of Ganesh, and by extension elephant imagery and associations, for physical metaphors.

The Southern performance will feature long-time associate and Bessie Award-winner Carolyn Hall, local dancer/choreographer and 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Morgan Thorson, Popkin himself, and dance legend Ishmael Houston-Jones with whom Popkin studied in 1990 and helped guide There is an Elephant in This Dance to completion.

The original score for There is an Elephant in This Dance was created by acclaimed and award-winning composer, singer and cellist Robert Een, a fellow faculty member of Popkin at UCLA's World Arts and Culture Department. Een has worked with numerous choreographers, including Ron K. Brown and the legendary Meredith Monk.

Artistic credits:
Choreography: Lionel Popkin in collaboration with the performers
Performers: Carolyn Hall, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Morgan Thorson and Lionel Popkin
Original Music: Robert Een
Music Performance: Robert Een, Hearn Gadbois and Valecia Phillips
Costumes: Jean Landry
Lighting: Ben Geffen (based on the original design by Kathy Kaufmann)
Video: Kyle Ruddick and Cari Ann Shim Sham
There Is An Elephant In This Dance is a project of 501 (see three) Arts, which is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Additional support has been provided by the 2008-2009 Danspace Project Commissioning Initiative with support from the Jerome Foundation, the Department of World Arts & Cultures at UCLA, the Council on Research, and the Djerassi Artsists Residency Program.
Performances: November 12 & 13, 2010
Fri. & Sat. at 8pm
Tickets: $24, $20
Southern Theater box office: 612.340.1725
1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55454
www.southerntheater.org

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