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Stepping Up: Graduate of UNCSA has a vision for the future of the dance company she formed
Photo courtesy of Jeff Cravotta
Asheville's Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance will perform July 17 and 18 at UNCSA. Works will include Heather Maloy’s Le Suil
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Published: July 12, 2009
When alumni from UNC School of the Arts return to their alma mater, they usually teach, perform or create. They rarely come back with ensembles they have founded.
Heather Maloy, Class of '89, will.
Her Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance, based in Asheville, will perform Friday and Saturday in De Mille Theatre on campus. The program, titled "The Recession Blues & Other Works," marks what Maloy hopes is the first in a regular series of summer performances in Winston-Salem. It will include her The Recession Blues, Le Suil Go ... and Satto by the late Salvatore Aiello. Aiello was the artistic director of the N.C. Dance Theatre, for which Maloy danced and choreographed for 13 years.
Maloy had at least three aims when she started Terpsicorps in 2003: to showcase her work, to give Asheville a professional ballet company and to provide work for dancers whose winter companies don't employ them in the summer months. She seems to have even greater ambitions now.
"The goal ... is to eventually be performing all over the state in the summer," Maloy said. "We're sort of taking it one step at a time. We started with Asheville. We're building into Winston. The next step that I would want to take would be Charlotte, because that's where I danced."
Maloy, who used to live in Winston-Salem, will be able to bring Terpsicorps here because of a grant from the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County and because of the support of several Winston-Salem residents on Terpsicorps' board. She seemed particularly excited about next weekend's performances, noting that N.C. Dance Theatre called Winston-Salem home before moving to Charlotte in 1990.
"I'm excited to be able to bring Sal's work back to Winston. It's been a long time since any of Sal's ballets were seen there," she said.
Nashville Ballet, which has supplied Terpsicorps with several dancers over the years, performed Satto, a work for two dancers, in 2003. Jon Upleger, who was a principal in that performance, will be a principal for the Terpsicorps performance in Winston-Salem, teaming up with Sadie Bo Harris.
Lisa DuBois, who reviewed Nashville Ballet's Satto for Dance Magazine, described the work as "an explosive depiction of a Wind God's interaction with a leaf."
"As performed by the nearly naked Jon Upleger and Jennifer McNamara, this was a stylized venture into the inherent eroticism found in nature. With arms and legs bent into sharp angles and hips swaying to the heat of the music, the pair twined and released with sensual vigor.... Satto abandoned any pretense of sexual innocence and concentrated instead on visceral, animal hunger."
As for Recession Blues, press materials describe it as a "look at some of the most resonant themes of the current recession." Several dancers, moving to the upbeat music of the Firecracker Jazz Band, will blend "the over-the-top style of 1930s musicals with a moving commentary on the hardships of today."
Julia Eisen, another UNCSA alumna, is serving as an intern with Terpsicorps this summer. She will also participate in the performance of Recession Blues.
She said she has come to think of Recession Blues as a highly theatrical work that is "not your typical classical ballet."
"It shows the comic and serious side to what we're all experiencing with the recession," she said.
■ The Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance will present "The Recession Blues &Other Works" at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in De Mille Theatre at UNC School of the Arts. Tickets are $17, $15 for students and seniors; call 721-1945.
■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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