Summerdance 2009 June 29-July 17 in SLC, UT

Repertory Dance Theatre internationally known for its historical and
classical Repertory in Modern Dance invites you to a once in a lifetime
opportunity to learn the technique and repertory of modern dance pioneer
Michio Ito. Classes will be taught by master teachers Kyoko Ryutani and
Kumiko Komine from Japan. In addition this workshop includes Ito lectures
and historical symposiums by Professor Mary Jean Cowell of Washington
University.

Summerdance 2009 also features historical repertory classes (Isadora
Duncan, Ted Shawn, Helen Tamiris, Ruth St. Denis, and Humphrey /
Weidman) and improvisation/composition classes by former RDT dancers
Andy Noble, Lynne Wimmer, and other RDT alumni.

Repertory Dance Theatre’s annual three-week workshop offers a wide-range of dance experiences including classes in Modern Dance Technique, Composition & Improvisation, Historical RDT Repertory,and this year featuring the technique and Repertory of Michio Ito. Summerdance is for intermediate and advanced dancers ages 16+.

Registration Information

To print form to send in with payment, click here.

Registration deadline June 1, 2009. Some partial scholarships
available.

Guest housing available through University of Utah and Summer Conference Program. Please contact RDT at rdt@rdtutah.org or call (801) 534-1000 for further information.

Register before June 1 and get $50 off.

Summer Dance workshop (9-4 daily), June 29 - July 17 at $650. Please call RDT (801) 534-1000 to register. Teacher workshops are not included in this price. University credit available for teachers and currently enrolled college students for an additional $40. Please bring check payable to University of Utah on first day of workshop.

Workshop Extra! During Summerdance 2009 all full tuition students are eligible to attend all RDT Community School classes for free. Valid June 29 - July 17 only.

Additional Summerdance 2009 Information

This three week intensive workshop will focus on the technique and repertory
of modern dance master Michio Ito who consciously created dance blending
elements of “east” and “west”. He was a pioneer who fused eastern and
western music, poetry and drama, to create universal choreographies that
have left a footprint in American Modern Dance.

Movement classes in Michio Ito’s technique and repertory will be taught by
Japanese master Ito teachers Kyoko Ryutani and Kumiko Komine. Kyoko was a dance student of Michio Ito, and Kumiko is the present director of Domonkai (Michio Ito School). Historical lectures and symposiums will be lead by Ito Scholar Mary Jean Cowell from Washington University in Missouri. Students will also learn RDT historical repertory inclduing works by Isadora Duncan, Helen Tamiris, Ted Shawn, and Doris Humphrey. Composition/Improvisation classes will be taught by RDT alumni including Andy Noble and Lynne Wimmer.

Daily Class Schedule

9:00 am - 10:00 am Modern Dance Technique
10:00 am - 11:00 am Michio Ito Dance Technique
11:15 am -12:15pm Composition/Improvisation
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm Lunch
1:15 pm - 2:45 pm Michio Ito Repertory
2:45 pm - 4:00 pm RDT Historical Repertory
July 16th End of workshop performance 7:30 pm

Teacher Workshop

Saturday July 11 | 9:00 am-1:00 pm |

Teacher Workshop, 9-2 $40 (Licensure points available)

Special workshop for all junior high, high school, and college level dance teachers in the technique and repertory of Michio Ito with historical lecture by Professor
Mary Jean Cowell. The day will also include composition and improvisation ideas and lesson plan development. *
*licensure points available

Biographies

Michio Ito. Born in Tokyo in 1893, Michio Ito‘s family gave him a rich sense of Japanese tradition and also an openness to Western ideas. His grandfather was a samurai and his father was an architect educated at the University of Washington. As a child he studied piano and later voice and Japanese classical drama and dance. In 1911 he moved to Paris where he studied singing and saw both Vaslav Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan perform. Inspired by Duncan’s style and disillusioned by European Opera, Ito entered the Jaques-Dalcrose Institute at Hellerau, Germany in 1912 where he learned the 20 Dalcrose gestures that inspired the development of his technique.

At the outbreak of World War I, Ito fled to London where he was taken up by an elite circle of artists and began his career as a dancer. In 1916 he moved to New York where he spent the next twelve years continuing to develop his own dance technique. His eclectic study led him to develop an approach to dance that was a combination of both “Eastern” and “Western” art. Ito described Eastern art as spiritual and Western art as material. Both, he thought, were required to make perfect art.

Ito’s technique included ten symbolic gestures of the arms which he compared to the 12 notes on a piano. He used these positions with variations of plane, angle, context and rhythm to present an endless variety of dances. His emphasis was on the distillation of emotion, inner concentration and incisive gesture.

The most unique feature of the Ito technique is its concentration in the arms and upper body in a series of gestures called A and B, masculine and feminine or yin-yang. These gestures created the ability to move with rhythmic precision and sensitivity and to move with a controlled flow of energy. The blend of Western and Eastern elements in Ito’s work took a variety of forms. The choreographic structure is closely related to the phrasing and form of the music. This unique blending of East and West created complementary qualities and forces, dynamic balance of light and dark, active and passive, male and female.

Ito explained: “I do not dance the legendary dances of my country as they are originally done in the East. I take the old legend as it stands. Then I combine what I learned in the East and what I learned in my studies in Paris, Vienna and other European art centers and blend them to make what I conceive to be a perfect harmonization.”

Among his students were Pauline Koner, Ruth St. Denis, Clare Booth Luce and Lester Horton.

In 1929 Ito moved to Los Angeles where he choreographed large symphonic works with hundreds of dancers in the Pasadena Rose Bowl and Hollywood Bowl. He also was director, scenic designer and/or choreographer for numerous theater productions. As a dance or scenic director, he worked on a number of motion pictures including No, No, Nanette and Madame Butterfly.

Ito’s career in the United States came to an unfortunate end during World War II. Twenty four hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was sent to a Japanese internment camp and later chose repatriation to Japan as part of a prisoner exchange rather than continued imprisonment. After the war, the American Occupation command appointed him head choreographer of the US army run theatre in Tokyo where he supervised production for the American troops. He resided in Tokyo until his death in 1961.

Ito grasped the power of concise symbolic expression. In 1926 he explained: “I try to develop in my pupils the capacity of symbolism. The symbolic gift is that of a poet who can express in twenty well-chosen words what a prose writer needs three thousand to express. The symbolic dancer compresses into a few symbolic gestures the works of a dramatic idea.”

Kyoko (Imura) Ryutani studied under Michio Ito from 1952 unitil his death in 1961.

After the passing of Michio in 1961, Kyoko Imura Ryutani organized the Michio Ito Association in 1964. She participated in the association performances; Michio Ito Birth Centennial Anniversary Performance, 40th Association Anniversary Commemoration Performance

Kyoko Imura Ryutani served as the president of the Michio Ito Association for 12 years and since 1994, has been engaged in the preservation of Michio’s works. She presently serves as the counselor of the association, overseeing Michio Ito projects.

Kyoko Imura Ryutani also manages Kyoko Imura Dance Art

Mary Jean Cowell is an Ito scholar who received an MA in Dance from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Japanese literature and theatre from Columbia University. She is the author of East and West in the Work of Michio Ito and Michio Ito in Hollywood: Modes and Ironies of Ethnicity.

Andy Noble is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Sam Houston State University. He has also served as faculty at the University of South Florida and Western Washington University as well as been a guest artist at numerous other universities across the country. He holds a BA in Modern Dance from the University of South Florida and a MFA with an emphasis in Dance Technology from Florida State University.

Andy’s performing career includes six years with Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), where he performed in over forty choreographic works by such noted masters as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Jose Limon. He also had the honor of working first-hand with many cutting edge contemporary and international artists such as Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move), Jø Strømgren and Zvi Gotheiner. Andy also was a member of the Demetrius Klein Dance Company in Miami, Florida.

Andy’s choreography has been presented nationally by such organizations as Seattle’s On the Boards, Repertory Dance Theatre, New York’s University Settlement, American College Dance Festival, Moving Current Dance Collective and Florida Dance Festival. The St. Petersburg Times described his choreography as having an “emotional impact” that leaves an “enduring impression.” The Salt Lake Tribune has hailed him as a Choreographer “full of heart.”

In the realm of technology, Andy is co-director of ANDancers Video Productions, a free-lance service providing documentation and promotional videos for art organizations. He also created and designed a multi-media component for Repertory Dance Theatre that chronicles a century of dance. His most recent research was as part of the creative team that developed ChoreoVideo.com, a web-based media resource designed to promote innovative instruction in the area of dance technology.