Events and News

Izumi Ashizawa (Assistant Professor, Acting, Movement, and Devised Theatre) mounted a new show Haoma and the Warrior in Tehran, Iran last June. Ashizawa created an original performance iKilL with her company members last July, and won the Capital Fringe Director's Award. She and her company members are creating a new performance, which will be premiered in Peru this summer. She will also direct Ekho in Australia and Alexander in Bulgaria this summer.

Karen K Bradley (Associate Professor, Dance) taught in the Laban Movement Studies program in Koolskamp, Belgium in January, 2012 and was appointed a member of the Dance Writing Team for the new Core Standards in Dance. She completed two book chapters for publication in Spring 2012: "The Dance of Learning" in the revised Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children and “Impulse 1961: The Dancer as a Person” in The IMPUSLE Project. She had a chapter published: "How to Change" in Transformative Eco-Education for Human and Planetary Survival. Professor Bradley was invited to present a talk: “Shift Happens: A Geo-somatic Journey of a Human Body, Moving” at the Festival of the Moving Body, March 16, 2012 at SUNY Stonybrook. She was also invited to participate in DANCE 2050: a symposium on the future of dance education at Temple University in May, 2012.

Faedra Chatard Carpenter (Assistant Professor, Critical Race Theory and Performance & Dramaturgy) was recently honored with two different appointments:  she is now an Editorial Board Member of Southern Quarterly:  A Journal of the Arts in the South and was also selected to be a member of the Board of Directors for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).  In addition, Dr. Carpenter recently served as the Dramaturg for The Hampton Years (a piece commissioned for Theatre J's Locally Grown new play festival) and she is currently serving as the Dramaturg for the world premiere of The Wings of Ikarus Jackson for the Kennedy Center's Theater for Young Audiences.

Daniel Conway (Associate Professor, MFA Director/Head of Design) recently designed Sabrina Fair  for  Ford's Theatre ; Hairspray for Signature Theatre directed by Eric Schaeffer; the premiere of Ken Ludwig's ( Lend Me a Tenor) new farce:  The Games Afoot  directed by Aaron Posner for The Cleveland Playhouse; and the premiere of a new adaptation of Cyrano by Michael Hollinger (Opus)  for The Folger and Arden Theatres. He is currently at work on The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Stephen Rayne for The Shakespeare Theatre, (assisted by MFA students Douglas Clarke, Drew Kaufmann, and JD Madsen); Double Indemnity for Roundhouse Theatre; and the american premiere of Sucker Punch, directed by this year's Obie award-winning director, Leah Gardiner for the Studio Theatre. (assisted by MFA students, Jake Ewonus and Andrew Cohen)  This production marks his twenty fifth design over the course of twenty seasons for Studio Theatre. In the summer of 2012 Professor Conway will serve as an advisor to The White House Historical Association's Decatur House on Lafayette Square. Professor Conway has been nominated 12 times and received The Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Set Design in 2000 and 2010. He was recently nominated for the 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Set Design, and he is thrilled by the same nomination for his third year MFA student, Collin Ranney

Adriane Fang (Artist in Residence, Dance) performed this past fall with the West Virginia Dance Company and Dahlia Nayar Butler at Dance Place in Washington, DC. This spring she will perform with Peter DiMuro as part of the Intersections Festival at the Atlas Theater in Washington, DC and with ClancyWorks at the Baltimore Theatre Project.

Leslie Felbain (Associate Professor, Acting, Movement, Theatrical Styles, F. M. Alexander Technique) traveled to Argentina where she presented an Alexander Technique workshop and her company Infinite Stage performed L'Hiver Sous la Table (Winter Under the Table) by Roland Topor. Felbain co-translated, adapted and directed the production, which was nominated for Best Production, Best Direction, Best Actor, and Best Actress at Festival Otono. Felbain performed a workshop production of her new solo piece, Heart Beat, at the 2011 International Congress of the F.M. Alexander Technique in Lugano, Switzerland. She also presented a workshop, "The Experience of the Performer" in Lugano. Felbain directed The Measure of Our Lives, a site-specific performance piece at the Smithsonian Institution's  National Portrait Gallery, which featured twelve undergraduate theatre majors.

Mitchell Hébert (Professor, Acting and Performance) recently recieved a nomination for The Robert Prosky Award for Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Play  for  After the Fall at Theatre J. He will direct The Illusion at Forum Theatre in May 2012

Misha Kachman (Assistant Professor, Scene and Costume Design) recently designed The Bright New Boise for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (nominated for the 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Set Design) and the world premieres of The Adventures of Dr. Wonderful at the Kennedy Center and Really Really at Signature Theatre. Misha is honored to have become a member of the Company of Artists at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in the fall of 2011. He is currently getting close to the opening of the world premiere new rock musical Brother Russia by John Dempsey and Dana Rowe at Signature Theatre. He is also designing The Crown of Shadows at Round House Theatre (world premiere), Mr. Burns by Ann Washburne at Woolly Mammoth (world premiere), Xanadu at Signature Theatre and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Woolly Mammoth later this season.

Brian MacDevitt (Associate Professor, Lighting Design) designed the lighting for Book of Mormon on Broadway and received a TONY award for best lighting. He designed lights for the new Broadway play Mountaintop starring Samuel Jackson and Angela Bassett, and Enchanted Island at the MET, which premiered New Year’s Eve. Professor MacDevitt directed the production of Proof at Theater Three in New York that opened this January.  This spring he is designing the revival of Death of a Salesman directed by Mike Nichols, Sucker Punch at the Studio in DC and The Maryland Opera Studio's Miss Havishams Fire and Postcards from Morocco.

Sharon Mansur (Assistant Professor, Dance) performed this past fall at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, the Sonic Circuits Experimental Music Festival in DC, and was an Artist Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts with collaborator UMD Architecture professor Ronit Eisenbach. They will be presenting another phase of their site-specific performance/installation project on April 28 at Lake Anne Plaza, Reston, VA, commissioned by the Reston Community Center. This spring Sharon will co-teach a dance improvisation workshop at the Performática Festival for Contemporary Dance and Movement Arts in Mexico, and perform at The Flea Theater’s Dance Conversations Festival in New York City with dance colleague Maré Hieronimus. With longtime collaborator Daniel Burkholder she will be performing "sightlines," an improvisational duet, at the Falls Bridge Improvisation Festival in Philadelphia, Dance Place in Washington, DC, and RADFest in Michigan.

Alvin Mayes (Instructor in Dance) was honored with the 2011 Pola Nirenska Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance by the Washington Performing Arts Society.   His work I Wake Up Dreaming, created as part of the Fortune’s Bones Project, was performed November 14, 2011 for the 50^th Anniversary of Peace Corps.   In addition I Wake Up Dreaming was performed for Fall 2011 Maryland Dance Ensemble. His work Early Fall,  commissioned by the Community College of Baltimore County, was performed for the 9/11 Remembrance in Baltimore, at Coppin State University for 1st Annual Urban Dance Festival  October 1, 2011 and at Dundalk Theatre December 8, 9 & 10, 2011. Alvin has been commissioned to make a new work for Montgomery College Rockville campus for Spring 2012. Alvin in a member of the a cappella singing group Not What You Think, which will be performing at  Hill wood museum on Saturday, March 3, 2012 and at the INTERSECTIONS Arts festival at the Atlas Theater on Sunday, March 11, 2012.

Laurie Frederik Meer (Assistant Professor, Performance Studies) recently presented papers at two international conferences: ASTR (American Society for Theatre Research) and AAA (American Anthropological Association), both held in Montreal, Canada in November.  At ASTR she presented a paper entitled "Painting the Body Brown: Gender, Nation, and Artistic Authority in Competition Ballroom Dancing."  The paper was part of a working group she helped organize, called Economies of Showing, and she is in the process of co-editing a book volume of articles selected from this event.  At AAA she presented a paper entitled "Legacy of Critique: Negotiating Artistic Membership, Ethnographic Trust, and Academic Expectations In Cuba,” a discussion of censorship in Cuba and Cuban theatre, and of the academic pressure to publish on these topics.  Her first book, Trumpets in the Mountains: Theater and the Politics of National Culture in Cuba, is in production and coming out in July with Duke University Press.  Professor Meer won a RASA grant to investigate legal performance and the "arts of persuasion" in both U.S. And Puerto Rican courtrooms, a project she began in January.  For Maryland Day, Professor Meer will be teaching a ballroom dance class called "DanceSport Endurance."

Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig (Associate Professors of Dance, Artistic Directors of PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER) in September opened the 2011-12 season at Dance Place in Washington, DC. In January, PWDT (including MFA Candidate in Dance Graham Brown and alumnus Tzveta Kassabova) traveled to Santiago, Chile to create and perform The Razor's Edge, a new work in collaboration with Compañía OTUX. PWDT will perform at Movement Research at the Judson Church in New York City on Monday, April 16, at 8pm. In July/August 2012, Sara and Patrik will choreograph a new work for Tanz Plan Ost in Switzerland. In September, they will create the next incarnation of their acclaimed site-specific work A Curious Invasion, this one at Middlebury College. www.pearsonwidrig.org

Miriam Phillips (Assistant Professor, Dance) served on the 2011 Congress of Research in Dance (CORD) Program Committee held in conjunction with the Society of Ethnomusicology (SEM) in Philadelphia.  She organized and moderated the panel: “Sounding the Floor: the Kin-aesthetics of Percussive Dance,” presented the paper “Foot, Floor, Footwork: Embodied Culture Through Kathak and Flamenco Foot Percussion,” and mentored TDPS graduate student, Kathleen Spanos on her paper, “Into and Out of the Floor: Weaving Music and Braiding Tradition in Irish Dance” presented in the same panel.  Her article, “Becoming the Floor / Breaking the Floor: Experiencing the Kathak-Flamenco Connection” was accepted for publication in the Journal of the Society of Ethnomusicology to be published later this year.  Recently, Professor Phillips served as grants consultant to San Francisco’s Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation. She is currently working with Professor Karen Bradley, the Association for Cultural Equity and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement on the project, “Digitizing a World of Dance: Repatriating the Alan Lomax Dance Archive.” For Maryland Day, Miriam will be teaching the popular FlamencoRobics® she developed in 2003 for the first time on the East Coast!

Ashley Smith (Assistant Professor of Voice and Acting) recently adapted and directed Eugene O'Neill's Recklessness Before Breakfast for radio broadcast as part of Arena Stage's Eugene O'Neill Festival. The cast of the radio production includes TDPS students and faculty. In February, he served as Dialect Director for the American premiere of Roy William's play Sucker Punch at Studio Theatre, assisted by MFAP student Caroline Clay. Over the winter, he performed in Shakespeare Theatre Company's critically acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing. Last fall, he served as Dialect Director for Baltimore Centerstage's production of The Rivals.