Contemporary Dance Oklahoma opens Friday and features works by both OU professors and guest artists, with themes ranging from love to physics.
Modern dance professor Austin Hartel serves as both artistic director and as a choreographer for Contemporary Dance Oklahoma.
"They're kind of one and the same," Hartel said of balancing being artistic director and choreographer. "They're different in that I'm looking at the overall artistic presentation of the company, including guest artists. I try to create work that pushes (the students') boundaries physically and technically.”
One of Hartel's pieces was originally choreographed in 1991 and was restaged for this year's production. The solo, though choreographed more than 20 years ago, is still poignant today, Hartel said.
The piece is based on a poem about a tightrope walker on the moon who has been watching the Earth for years. Eventually he falls off the tight rope to Earth and is distraught by humanity's inability to stop fighting wars, Hartel said.
"It's because, just like when the poem was written, humans can't seem to stop fighting wars. We haven't grown," Hartel said. "Some part of us is still trapped in the Middle Ages or something. It would be nice if we could develop a more global human conscience."
Hartel's second piece was inspired by physics, Schrödinger's cat and Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time." The book was sitting on Hartel's desk with several bookmarks stuck inside as he spoke.
"I love theoretical physics. My wife gave me this book, and I was like, 'Wow, I wonder if I could create visual representation of this concept,'" Hartel said as he opened "A Brief History of Time" to point at different concepts of light and time.
Hartel uses his dancers to demonstrate these concepts of time, space and light by playing with lighting design to only show some of his dancers and to question time, he said.
Hartel's final piece is to music by Bach and is simply entitled "Bach." This piece, unlike the others, does not deeply question the darkness of humanity or the concept of time but is a classic modern dance, Hartel said.
"It's just a really pretty, happy dance; just a classic modern dance, very upbeat," Hartel said. "It's classic in its sensibility."
Students have been rehearsing for 21 to 27 hours each week in addition to completing their coursework and have been through audition processes with the guest artists to determine who will dance in which piece and in which role, he said.
The other pieces include works by OU ballet professor Ilya Kozadayev and guest artists Raimondo Rebeck and Sonia Dawkins.
Kozadayev’s piece, "Lucid," is about dreams and dream states, Hartel said.
“It’s very contemporary ballet. Students look great in it,” Hartel said. “It’s very rich in its movement vocabulary.”
Dawkins' piece, “Love Letter,” revolves around love and love letters and allows dancers to put their own personal experiences into the choreography.
Rebeck’s work, "Black Lights," is set on the OU dancers and explores blindness and how those who are blind visualize the world.
“They visualize in 3-D but don’t see the world, but do experience the world,” Hartel said. “The main character is blind and the character that comes with her in the duet is like her ‘guide’ and the one that pushes her to go beyond her boundaries.”
The guest artists give students the opportunity to work with not only renowned choreographers but also to be pushed even further technically, he said.
“We look for work that pushes and challenges our students and gives them exposure to choreographers and styles they don’t usually get exposed to here, with the faculty,” Hartel said. “We try to educate and train them to be stronger when they leave here.”
Contemporary Dance Oklahoma opens at 8 p.m. April 29 in the Reynolds Performing Arts Center.
