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Dance

WHO?                    DESERT DANCE THEATRE

WHAT?                  LEGACY: 35th Anniversary Celebration and Tribute to Marion Kirk Jones

WHEN?                 Thursday-Friday, June 12-13, 2014 at 7:30pm

WHERE?                               Tempe Center for the Arts - Studio

                                                700 West Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe, Arizona 85281

COST?                   SHOW TICKETS ONLY: $18 Adult, $15 Senior, $13 Student, $11 Group of 5+, Arizona Dance Coalition (ADC), Friends of Desert Dance Theatre (FDDT)

                                                SHOW & RECEPTION TICKETS: $30 General, $28 Senior, $26 Student, $25 Group         of 5+, Arizona Dance Coalition (ADC), Friends of Desert Dance Theatre (FDDT)

                                                RECEPTION ONLY: $15 (if paid separately at the reception entrance)

               

TICKETS?             TCA Box Office: 480-350-2822 (480-350-2TCA) or www.tempe.gov/tca (Service and convenience fees may apply)

 

QUESTIONS?  Desert Dance Theatre, 480-962-4584 or go to www.DesertDanceTheatre.org.

 

Photos available upon request.

 

LEGACY: 35th Anniversary Celebration and Tribute to Marion Kirk Jones

 

Desert Dance Theatre presents LEGACY: 35th Anniversary Celebration and Tribute to Marion Kirk Jones at the Tempe Center for the Arts Studio on Thursday-Friday, June 12-13, 2014 at 7:30pm.   A fundraising reception will follow directly after the show each night. 

 

LEGACY, a celebration and reunion for Desert Dance Theatre, will present 35 years of past and current repertory as well as remembering highlighted moments about the company’s accomplishments presented live and on video. LEGACY is also a Tribute to Marion Kirk Jones who passed away on April 4, 2014, almost one month shy of her 93rd birthday. Part of this program will be dedicated to Marion’s Celebration of Life as friends, family and colleagues share memories.

 

Past DDT dance members will join current members in live performances of: “The Quickening” by Marion Kirk Jones; “The Butterfly Effect” by Billbob Brown; “Rites” by Lisa R. Chow; “Need Help?!?!?” by Step Raptis; “Arachne” by Marion Kirk Jones; “Motherless Child” excerpt from “Sister Moses: The Story of Harriet Tubman” choreographed collaboratively by Marion Kirk Jones, Renee Davis and Lisa R. Chow. 

 

A fundraising reception will follow directly after the show in the 201 Lounge.

 

Please join us on this momentous occasion as we celebrate 35 years and pay homage to our beloved Marion Kirk Jones.

 

Brief History of How It All Began

It’s amazing to think that this Arizona dance company has survived in the desert for 35 years. Desert Dance Theatre was founded by four ASU dance graduates: Billbob Brown, Dorothy Anderson, Margie Romero, and Debbie Schofield, who wanted to dance professionally, but didn’t want to move out of state to New York or California where dance was already a vital part of the arts, cultural and entertainment scene. During that time in 1979, there were no professional contemporary or modern dance companies in the Valley. The only professional dance company was the Mesa Civic Ballet and then there were a couple of small non-professional dance groups that performed on occasion. So the four ASU dance graduates, decided to take the challenge to form a professional dance company to serve as an outlet for dancers to perform professionally and to fill a void in the artistic and cultural needs in communities throughout Arizona. After getting incorporated and obtaining its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, the company joined the artist roster of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, which gave them opportunities to tour all over the state of Arizona and tour throughout Mexico on the Bi-Cultural Touring Program. 

 

They received much encouragement and inspiration from Marion Kirk Jones, an ASU dance professor, who mentored hundreds of dance students and acted as a consulting director for Desert Dance Theatre since its beginning in 1979. Marion had contributed as a choreographer, artistic director and administrator on its board of directors. Her previous history of dance experiences included: dancer in the Lester Horton Dance Company, trained with modern dance pioneers such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, Ted Shawn and Louis Horst; and trained at the School of American Ballet with George Balanchine, Anatol Oboukhoff, Pierre Vladimiroff and Muriel Stuart. She also taught at colleges and universities around the country before joining the faculty at Arizona State University Dance Department.

 

Billbob Brown, a founding member, was the Artistic Director of Desert Dance Theatre for the first 10 years. Then Marion Kirk Jones served as the Artistic Director with Lisa R. Chow as the Assistant Artistic Director/Company Manager and Renee Davis as the Rehearsal Director/Costumer. Currently, Lisa R. Chow assumes the role as Artistic Director with Renee Davis and Step Raptis as Associate Artistic Directors.

 

For more information call Desert Dance Theatre, 480-962-4584 or go to www.DesertDanceTheatre.org. For tickets: TCA Box Office: 480-350-2822 or www.tempe.gov/tca
 

 

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