Celebrate the legacy of Mexican American choreographer, José Limón, during an engaging afternoon of art and dance. The UCSB Dance Company will perform two dances–Missa Brevis (1958) and “The Running Dance” from Psalm (1967)–choreographed by Limón and staged by Alice Condodina, UCSB’s 2023-24 Dickson Professorship Honor Chair, that showcase Limón’s pioneering creative vision. The performance will be followed by a short introduction to the AD&A Museum’s current exhibition, Border Crossing: Exile and American Modern Dance, which features the impact Limón’s work had on the history of modern dance, by curator and professor, Ninotchka Bennahum.
The UCSB Dance Company is directed by Delila Moseley.
Alice Condodina is the 2023-24 Dickson Professorship Honor Chair, and has focused her award on directing and reconstructing sections from two Limón masterworks, as a homage to the mexican born artist. Condodina was a member of the Limón Dance Company under the artistic leadership of José Limón. She was also trained in Limón’s unique educational method that emphasizes a new dance aesthetic and mode of visualizing in time and space to inspire humanity.
Ninotchka D. Bennahum, PhD, dance historian and curator, is Professor of Theater and Dance and the Graduate Advisor in the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her areas of teaching and research include diaspora and performance; 20th century avant-garde performance; Flamenco history. She is the author of Antonia Mercé, ‘La Argentina: Flamenco & the Spanish Avant-Garde, Carmen, a Gypsy Geography, The Living Dance: A Global Anthology of Essays on Movement & Culture, coedited with Judith Chazin-Bennahum (mom), and Flamenco on the Global Stage: Theoretical, Historical and Critical Perspectives, coedited with Michelle Heffner-Hayes and K. Meira Goldberg. She has co-curated numerous exhibitions with accompanying symposia and books: Transformation & Continuance: Jennifer Muller & the Re-Shaping of American Modern Dance, 1959 – Present; 100 Years of Flamenco on the New York Stage; Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955 – 1972, New York Revisited, 1962 – 1964 (Jewish Museum, New York City); Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance, 1900 – 1955; Dance to Belong: Histories of Dance at 92NY, on view March 12, 2024 - October 31, 2024. In 2019, she curated a permanent exhibition for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Dance (Lathrop Hall) entitled Radical Pedagogy: Margaret H’Doubler, Anna Halprin, and American Dance, 1916 – Present. The resident dance scholar for American Ballet Theatre (ex oficio), she is completing a critical examination of the company entitled: Exile and Modernity: American Ballet Theatre in the Shadow of War. She serves on the Board of Advisors of Dance Chronicle.
Image: Missa Brevis (1958) choreographed by José Limón and performed by the UCSB Dance Company, 2024. Photo by Stephen Sherrill.
