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.
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