Performance Highlights
Besides student and faculty performances, the department sponsors visits by nationally known dance companies, choreographers, and critics for teaching residencies and performances. A partial list includes Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, Johanna Boyce, Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, Richard Bull Dance Company, Merce Cunningham, David Dorfman Dance, Douglas Dunn, Meredith Monk, Mark Morris, Phoebe Neville, Wendy Perron, Pilobolus, Dana Reitz, Kei Takei, UMO Performance Ensemble, Doug Varone, Trisha Brown Company, and David Parker and the Bang Group; and lectures by dance writers Susan Foster, Jill Johnston, Laura Shapiro, and Marcia B. Seigel. These professionals teach master classes and offer lecture-demonstrations as part of their visits to campus, and sometimes are commissioned to create choreography especially for the Bowdoin dancers.
The department also presents numerous plays and performance events, directed or created by faculty, guest artists and by students. Recent departmental productions have included Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, the premiere of Elizabeth Wong's China Doll, Elizabeth Egloff's Phaedra, Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom, Shakespeare's Macbeth, and a collaborative theater piece directed by Shauna Kanter, with live original music by John La Barbera. In conjunction with the department's activities, visiting artists present performance workshops and professional courses in a variety of areas. The department has sponsored several residencies and performances by artists such as Spalding Gray and Dan Hurlin (both Obie-award-winning performance and theater artists).