Audience Location:
America the Beautiful Park
Date and Time:
June 24, 2017 at 3:00pm MDT
Water Locale:
Monument Valley Creek
Choreographer(s):
Co-Choreographers: Janet Johnson & Shawn Womack
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Janet Johnson (Artistic Director). As the founder of the Ormao Dance Company, Ms. Johnson has brought a longed-for level of professional contemporary dance to our city. She has introduced noted choreographers to the company and given young, emerging choreographers fertile ground to launch exciting new works. As a choreographer, She is a three-time recipient of the Pikes Peak Arts Council Award for Excellence in Choreography. After studying at the University of Wisconsin, she began dancing, teaching and choreographing in a variety of companies until founding Ormao Dance Company in 1990. Her belief in the inclusive nature of modern dance has created a company with depth of artistic expression, brilliance of technical skill, and given the Colorado Springs community a professional contemporary dance company to call their own.
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Shawn Womack is a choreographer, performer and dance professor. Prior to her tenure at Colorado College, Shawn taught for eight years at Grinnell College and as a guest artist at numerous colleges and universities including University of California, Riverside, the Ohio State University, Iowa State University, University of Cincinnati and Ohio University. While in Ohio, Shawn founded Shawn Womack Dance Projects, a contemporary dance and performance company that performed throughout the United States and in the former Soviet Union. Her choreography for the company was recognized with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council as well as the 1996 Ohio Governor’s award in the category of performing arts. In the past eight years her work has been produced in Russia in the cities of Kazan and Saransk as well as throughout the United States at Bryant College, Iowa State University, Des Moines Playhouse, University of California, Los Angeles, Minneapolis’ Southern Theatre, San Diego’s Sushi, University of California, Riverside and Colorado College.
History of Site and Related Water Issues:
1) Drought: Eastern Colorado is a high desert environment and we cycle in and out of drought conditions. Western Colorado’s mountains collect snow each winter and spring run-off varies. Colorado has many man-made dams which redirect our scarce water resources to other states.
2) Floods: Since the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, the landscape burn scars still do not have enough vegetation to manage heavy rainfall. Flooding in the valleys and the the city have caused significant damage and injury.
3) Water contamination: In Fountain/Security Colorado in 2016 their municipal water source was contaminated. The EPA found elevated levels of PFC’s, a man-made chemical, in a water source used by Fountain, Security, and Widefield. One year later, the issue remains a problem.
Music:
We wil have Sophie Javna creating vocalizations for our circular meditation walk and Dallo Yayefall, originally from Senegal West Africa has connected us with a group of drummers.
The Performance:
This is a community dance, we have invited the public to join us ages 8-88. We have created a meaningful and accessible dance piece which begins with an arrival sequence at a large circular water sculpture in the America the Beautiful Park. Participants will share and pour water as prayers for clean, bountiful, freely accessible water followed by a circular meditation walk with a small vessel of water. All will face the center of the circle and repeat a movement/gesture phrase, split the circle and gather with Dallo Yayefall for a call and response movement section. All participants will disperse in an overlapping, wavelike pattern to complete the Global Water Dance. We expect to have approximately 25 participants.
Environmental Impact:
We believe in the power of movement in public places to draw attention towards this vital issue of clean, accessible, free water for all. We have invited the local Sierra Club members, One Nation Walking Together, and the TAVA Circle which is a group of local citizens committed to supporting the water rights issues of Standing Rock, North Dakota and the NoDAPL Dakota Access Pipeline.
Directions to the Site of Performance:
Downtown Colorado Springs, near the intersection of I-25 and Cimarron, follow signs to the America the Beautiful Park.
Email for more information:
How can I get involved?
Email us at [email protected]. We also have a Facebook invitation.
Local Website:
Other resources and links:
