Four award-winning contemporary choreographers take inspiration from expressive guitar music to create this year’s Dance Downtown, the annual concert that showcases the talents of undergraduate and graduate dance majors in The Ohio State University Department of Dance. The production will be staged at 8 pm Friday, November 22, and Saturday, November 23, at the Capitol Theatre, Riffe Center, 77 South High St. in downtown Columbus.

In addition, Ohio State will present a young people’s version of the production at 10:30 am on November 22 as an outreach project for local schoolchildren. More than 800 students in grades 3 to 12 will see the performances at the theatre.

“As Columbus re-energizes its downtown core, and as the university re-invigorates its town and gown relationships, we are thrilled to continue the tradition of Dance Downtown, which started more than a decade ago,” said Susan Petry, chair, Department of Dance. “The event mixes professional world-class choreographers, stellar dance students, and audience members from the university and the community.”

On the program:

• Acclaimed dance artist, Ohio State dance alumna and modern dance icon Dianne McIntyre presents a new work for 14 dancers in response to the sounds of early blues. McIntyre is highly regarded for her choreographic musicality and her dedication to dancers creating a relationship to the music.
• Legendary choreographer, Ohio State dance alumna and Distinguished Professor of Dance Bebe Miller reprises her 1991 creation with "The Hendrix Redux," a chaotic, yet ordered visualization of the music of the legendary guitarist. Eleven dancers will perform.
• With his piece "Holometabolo," visiting artist from Costa Rica Jimmy Ortiz constructs movement material for 15 dancers, inspired by the concept of radical transformations. The original sound score composed for his work harnesses the versatility and virtuosity of electric and acoustic guitars.
• Choreographer Abby Zbikowski creates a new work with an all-female cast of 13 dancers exploring her rhythmically driven, hard-edged movement vocabulary, drawing from the rawness and vitality of punk and hip-hop cultures.

For ticket information, go to dance.osu.edu/events/downtown or call the Ohio State theatre box office at (614) 292-2295. Tickets also available from Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster charge by phone at (800) 745-3000, or the CAPA ticket office, (614) 469-0939. For directions, parking, accessibility information and more, visit capa.com.

Image: Catherine Proctor, photographer; Kathryn Sauma, dancer

Biographies:

Dianne McIntyre (BFA, Dance) is known for her work in modern dance, as well as in theatre on Broadway, in London and in regional theatre. Her work can be seen in the feature film "Beloved" and the award-winning HBO movie "Miss Evers’ Boys," for which McIntyre received an Emmy nomination. Other choreography for television includes "Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper" and "for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf."

McIntyre, who is originally from Cleveland, moved to New York City in 1970 and founded her dance/music ensemble Sounds in Motion in 1972. She has collaborated with countless legendary musicians and her company has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, appearing in all major dance venues including the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center and more.

She closed her company in 1988 to concentrate on new areas of creative expression, including dance, theatre/dance works, and choreography for plays. She has choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Repertory Ensemble, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and university dance groups. She has received numerous honors and awards including three Bessie Awards, three Helen Hayes nominations, and the Thelma Hill Award and Woodie Award, both for lifetime achievement.

Bebe Miller (MA, Dance), a native New Yorker, first performed her choreography at New York City’s Dance Theater Workshop in 1978, and formed the Bebe Miller Company in 1985. Known for its mix of virtuosic dancing and fundamental humanity, her choreography has been produced at major dance centers across the country and internationally in Europe and Africa.

Miller’s work has been commissioned by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, Boston Ballet, Philadanco, Ailey II, and the UK’s Phoenix Dance Company, among others. She has been honored with four New York Dance and Performance Bessie Awards, fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council and the Guggenheim Foundation, and was named a United States Artists Ford Fellow in 2010.

Miller is a Distinguished Professor of Dance at Ohio State, where she has taught since 2000; she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Ursinus College in 2009. In 2012 she was designated as a member of the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artists, a program of the Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Artist Awards. Most recently, she was honored by New York Live Arts who presented her with the 2013 David White Award.

Jimmy Ortiz is a choreographer, performer, singer, director, psychologist, and MFA in Universidad de Costa Rica. He is a prestigious contemporary dance teacher in Costa Rica and internationally, and is well known for his innovative creations for the stage and public spaces and his leadership in building a thriving contemporary dance scene in Latin America.

In 1988 Ortiz founded the Losdenmedium Dance Company now called 4Pelos/Losdenmedium, which has presented more than 30 works at venues and art festivals across Latin America, Europe and the United States. He has been awarded the Premio Nacional (National Award) many times. In 2003, Ortiz founded the “Conservatorio El Barco” in San José, Costa Rica, under his own pedagogic principles for contemporary dance and interdisciplinary studies, the first of its kind in Central America. El Barco serves as a premier Latin American training center for contemporary dance.

Ortiz works internationally to create and teach students and professional dancers, and is creating an international dance platform called “Ensimismados.”

Abby Zbikowski is a choreographer interested in movement, practice and meaning behind physical form and action. Zbikowski’s work has been presented at DNA’s Raw Material, Movement Research at Judson Church, the nEW Festival, Philly Fringe, COLLAGE Arts Festival, the Hear/Now series presented by the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, among others. Her work has also been commissioned by Ohio State, where she received her MFA and currently teaches full time.