Job: Asst. Professor, Modern Dance, Choreography

University of Florida

School of Theatre + Dance Job Opening

Assistant Professor of Modern Dance and Choreography

Position Description: Full-time, nine month, tenure accruing faculty position

Date of Expected Hire: August 16, 2015

Salary: $57,000 plus a full benefits package.
 
www.arts.ufl.edu/theatreanddance

Responsibilities:  Include teaching all levels of Modern Technique, Dance Composition, and Repertory. Expertise is also desirable in one or more of the following areas: Improvisation, Dance Pedagogy, Jazz/Hip-Hop, Kinesiology/Somatics, Dance Media and Technology, and/or Ballet.

Further responsibilities include direction and/or participation in the organization of annual dance concert and showcases; commitment to teaching excellence and creative collaboration; serve on school, college, and/or university committees; effective student guidance; organizational and administrative duties in dance activities; and leadership in recruitment efforts.

Minimum Qualifications: MFA or PhD (or equivalent professional experience) with experience and currency in the field as a performer/choreographer. Two years teaching experience in higher education or professional dance setting beyond graduate school that demonstrates an outstanding record of conduct of inclusion and diversity in the arts and higher education.

Preferred Qualifications: Vita should contain evidence of a strong and growing national and international presence in the field of performance and creative research in dance.

Application Deadline: Applications must be submitted via the University of Florida's online application system at http://jobs.ufl.edu/postings/58996. Online applications must include the following: (1) a detailed letter of application; (2) professional résumé or CV; (3) 10-15 minute sample of creative work(s) on web link/video sharing site; (4) statement of teaching philosophy; (5) teaching sample on web link/video sharing site; (6) three professional references with complete contact information. The Search Committee may request additional materials at a later time.

Review of applications will begin December 1, 2014 and continue until the position is filled. To ensure full consideration, all application documents must be submitted by December 1, 2014.

Additional materials may be sent to:

Ric Rose, Chair, Dance Search Committee, School of Theatre and Dance
University of Florida
P.O. Box 115900
Gainesville, FL  32611-5900
Email: rarose@ufl.edu
Phone: (352) 273-0506

If an accommodation due to a disability is needed to apply for this position, please call +1 (352) 392- 4621 or the Florida Relay System at +1 (800) 955-8771 (TDD).

The University of Florida is an equal opportunity institution dedicated to building a broadly diverse and inclusive faculty and staff; seeking faculty of all races, ethnicities, genders, backgrounds, experiences, perspectives and those who practice conduct of inclusion.

The selection process will be conducted in accord with the provisions of Florida‘s Government in the Sunshine and Public Records Laws. Search committee meetings and interviews will be open to the public, and applications, resumes, and any other documents related to the search will be available for public inspection.

SCHOOL OF THEATRE + DANCE:

The School of Theatre + Dance has an international full-time faculty of 21 people who are recognized artists and researchers in their own right, complemented by adjunct and guest faculty and staff, including full- and part-time professionals. The School offers MFA curricula in acting and in design/technology, which includes scene design, lighting design and costume technology; BFA programs in acting, musical theatre, scene design, lighting design and costume design; and a B.A. in general theatre. The School's B.F.A. degree in Dance Performance includes four interlocking streams of dance study: choreography and performance, intercultural dance studies, dance and medicine, and dance theatre. Approximately 200 students major in the artistically diverse curricula of the School of Theatre + Dance. Through its production program, outreach and innovative programming, the School of Theatre + Dance provides multiple cultural opportunities annually to thousands of members of the University and the greater community. The University of Florida is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Theatre and the National Association of Schools of Dance.  For more information, visit www.arts.ufl.edu/theatreanddance.

The University of Florida:

The University of Florida is a comprehensive learning institution built on a land grant foundation. We are The Gator Nation, a diverse community dedicated to excellence in education and research and shaping a better future for Florida, the nation and the world. Our mission is to enable our students to lead and influence the next generation and beyond for economic, cultural and societal benefit. UF is a graduate research institution with 50,000 students and membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities. Gainesville, which is consistently ranked as one of the nation’s most livable cities, is located midway between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the University and the community comprise the educational, medical and cultural center of North Central Florida, with outstanding resources such as the University of Florida Performing Arts (Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the Baughman Center, University Auditorium), the Harn Museum of Art, the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Hippodrome State Theatre.

COLLEGE OF THE ARTS:

The College of the Arts fosters creative activity, scholarly and artistic excellence and innovation across disciplines. We achieve the university’s mission by training professionals and educating students as artists and scholars, while developing their critical thinking and inspiring a culture of curiosity and imagination. The College offers baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degrees. Approximately 1,100 students are pursuing majors in degrees offered by the College of the Arts under the direction of 100 faculty members in its three accredited schools — the School of Art + Art History, School of Music, School of Theatre + Dance. In addition to its schools, the college comprises the Center for Arts and Public Policy, Center for Arts in Medicine, Center for World Arts, Digital Worlds Institute, University Galleries and the college program of the New World School of the Arts in Miami.

CENTER FOR WORLD ARTS:

Founded in 1996, UF’s Center for World Arts (CWA) advances diversity and internationalism in arts praxis, policy, research and education. Recognizing the power of the artist to voice the unique human condition, the CWA values arts processes as critical resources to shape and interpret our interconnected—but not unified—world. In dialogue and exchange with artists, scholars, diverse cultural communities and interdisciplinary partners across the campus and the globe, the Center tests new paradigms of curriculum, scholarship, media, cultural exchange and entrepreneurship. The CWA has been recognized as the artistic arm of UF’s prestigious US Department of Education, Title VI National Resource Centers and the research arm of the bi-continental Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium. Through its practices, the CWA seeks to enhance the role the arts play for the responsible world citizen and to equip the UF student to imaginatively engage and contribute to an increasingly global community. For more information, visit www.arts.ufl.edu/cwa.

Senior ballroom dancers star in new indie documentary

Ballroom Confidential
(2014, USA; 85 minutes)
directed by Brian Lilla and produced by JoAnn Lilla

reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Filmmaker Brian Lilla's mother, JoAnn Lilla, a real estate agent, took up ballroom dancing after losing her husband of 45 years. The vibrant changes he saw in her moved him to make a documentary about other Florida seniors, many of them widows, discovering new life and direction through taking ballroom dance classes with instructor Caleb Young.

Young--once a singer-songwriter and drag performer in New York--returned home to Florida after 9/11 and the breakup of a relationship. On the urging of his mother, he became a ballroom instructor, later opening the Absolutely Ballroom studio, a quick success. Lilla's Ballroom Confidential introduces us to the caring, sensitive Young, his choreographer Joe Mounts and several of their resourceful students, aged 60s through 90s, as they prepare for the annual studio show.

Some came with at least a little background in dancing; others, none. One shows off her closet-load of fancy dresses and accessories expressly for ballroom. But all seem transformed by the grace and glamour of the dance and the way Young and Mounts appeal to their innate sense of theater and role-playing. Ballroom even manages to win over Young's motorcycle-riding dad who overcomes his initial discomfort--"It's too feminine for me"--and becomes not only a student and sought-after male partner but the studio's lighting-and-sound guy.

Shirley Kirth, a stroke survivor with regal bearing and a penchant for cussing, doesn't want to be like other women in her retirement home, doing nothing but playing Bingo and dominoes in the balmy weather. "It seems like anyone over 60 just wants to sit on the couch, and I'm horrified," she says. Class fees can add up fast for these retirees, even at ethical businesses like Absolutely Ballroom, but Margaret Russo calls her lessons "an investment in my well-being." Lila's film shows that as a way to improve confidence and mood, enhance brain function and keep alive human touch and connection as one ages, ballroom dancing has much to recommend it.

*****

Ballroom Confidential will be released on February 11 through Amazon and Vimeo and later through iTunes and Hulu. To order a DVD now or to learn more about Lilla's documentary, click here.

Jack Mitchell, photographer, 88 [UPDATE]

Iconic photographer Jack Mitchell dies at 88

by Richard Conn, News-Journalonline.com, November

Jack Mitchell, Photographer of the Arts, Dies at 88by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, November 9, 2013

Aszure Barton busking in Sarasota

Hit this link and scroll down the page for my Dance Magazine review of the world premiere of Aszure Barton's Busk.

Sideshow: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

Sideshow:  The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida

review by Deborah Feller, MFA, LCSW, NCAC II

Ducking into the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art during the opening night outdoor festivities, I was refreshed by the blast of cold air and taken aback by a very large, very green, abstract painting vaguely reminiscent of Willem de Kooning's slashed women.  It hung between two portraits:  on the left, a woman in an iridescently painted gown;  on the right, Joshua Reynold's John Manners, Marquis of Granby (1766), depicted standing with his arm draped over his horse's ass.

My companion, there to review the Ringling International Arts Festival and remembering some advance publicity, attempted an explanation.  The contemporary works were supposed to relate to the historical works adjacent to them.  We figured the key here was the color, relating it to that shimmering gown.  Surprise!  Surprise!  It was Lord Manners and his horse.

Louise Fishman Among the Old Masters, curated by Virginia Brilliant (snippets of whose rationale I overheard on a subsequent visit as she guided three women around the museum), “interjects” the artist's “lean abstract paintings with muscular blocks of color” into six of the museum's galleries, engaging in a dialog with their selected twins.  It seemed to me not so much a conversation as a major disagreement.

This juxtaposition of the old and the new underscores the amount of craft entailed in producing old masters' works.  Although much of the Ringling's collection doesn't reach greatness, even the B work required more refined technique than Ms. Fishman's abstract musings.  Full disclosure:  I'm an artist working in the realist tradition who loves the Italian Baroque and my idea of truly accomplished abstract art looks like that of Gerhardt Richter, a man who knows what to do with paint.

The Ringling had two other special exhibitions through which I wandered.  One was Dangerous Women, billed as an examination of the 16th and 17th centuries' fascination with “the exotically (and oftentimes meagerly) clad Biblical [sic] temptresses, Judith and Salome” who sometimes merged into one sword-wielding or -commanding beheader (read castrator) of men.   Two paintings come immediately to mind:  Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598) and Artemisia Gentileschi's work of the same subject, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-13).  While I didn’t expect to find either of them in this modest show, I was disappointed there were no reproductions.  On the other hand, I appreciated the inclusion of Fede Galizia's Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1596), a painting I knew about but had never seen.  Of the two versions that exist of this work, I’d want to see this one first, for here the artist has signed her name on the sword;  on the other, her signature appears on the tray holding the severed head, a very different message.

I had more to choose from in Venice in the Age of Canaletto where I made other new acquaintances and renewed contact with old ones.  I've never been a big fan of Caneletto, nee Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), whose work seems too studio bound, lacking the quality of Venice's unique light.  Francesco Guardi (1712-1793), on the other hand, and even the lesser known Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780)–-both following on the heels of Canaletto–-display the animation, color and chiaroscuro missing in the older painter's works.  Two pieces by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), a fresco, Allegory: Glory and Magnanimity of Princes (1757-61), transferred onto canvas and an oil on canvas modello for a larger work, The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto, showcased his draftsmanship and colorito.  Several fine paintings by Sabastiano Ricci (1659-1734), active much earlier than Canaletto, introduced me to his work.

Completing my peregrinations around the museum, I noted with excitement work such as Peter Paul Rubens's The Triumph of Divine Love (c.1625), a huge masterpiece just inside one of the museum entrances off the courtyard.  Showing the figure of Charity in all her Rubenesque voluptuousness surrounded by and holding babies, this one looks autograph.  The rest of the large paintings from the commission for which this was painted suggest a busy workshop, upon which Rubens surely depended.

Most of the permanent collection in the Ringling Art Museum reflects a collector lacking a Bernard Berenson to guide his selections but who nonetheless occasionally got lucky.  Currently in the process of developing a fund for acquisitions and limited by a small conservation department with a long to-do list, the museum (owned by the state of Florida and managed by Florida State University) has great potential.  Ms. Brilliant and company are working on bringing the museum into the 21st century for which I wish them the best in these difficult economic times.  One can never have too many museums of art.

[Venice in the Age of Caneletto is on view until January 10, 2010.]

Deborah Feller is an artist and clinical social worker specializing in the treatment of incest and addictive/compulsive disorders.  Her paintings and drawings depict the stories of her psychotherapy clients in narratives and still lifes.  She also does portraits.