Sheron Wray: Blending Jazz, African Dance & Technology - UC Irvine

>> My background in dance really stems from social dancing at home, which led me to a more formal study of dance. Then I went to London and joined the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, which was a modern dance company, and also Ballet Rumba. So, for 10 years I performed and taught for those companies, led me on to developing my own work, as I started a company called Jazz Exchange Music & Dance Company - which is where I really forged my ideas around jazz as a contemporary form of dance that embodies improvisation that's really the essence why one dances to jazz. And that's what eventually brought me to the States, working with composers and improvisation. That sort of then continued into bringing me to UCI.

>> I need to feel your presence coming to the step. You all kind of step through, and it's like, OK, we're coming forwards. >> At this time, I am looking at how to engage audiences in the whole experience of improvisation. Thinking about the next generation, a generation that is very tied to their technology, I developed this idea of using mobile or cell phones as you call them here within the performance. So it created a structure where by specific points in the narrative, the audience are provoked to respond to something that's happening. And there are also a series of questions through which the performance redirects itself.

So it responds to the presence of the audience. Within the department, I am developing an ensemble. We called the ensemble "Insight." It is really to develop an outlook for jazz in the program. I'm sort of playing with the idea that having dancers think of themselves as musicians. Thinking of their movement as tonality, the dynamics, the harmonics, being able to synthesize things that seemingly don't go together. So, creating harmony out of discord. Being able to absorb those things, really all those things are what are essential to jazz. At least where I am coming from..

African instruments here

https://howtoplaythedjembedrums.com/sheron-wray-blending-jazz-african-dance-technology-uc-irvine/