Thursday, July 7, 2011

SMU welcomes Flying Foot Forum


Joe Chvala and the Flying Foot Forum will present an evening of intricately layered percussive footwork for Saint Mary’s first “Off the Page” event Saturday, July 23.

Audiences are invited to watch what the Minneapolis Star Tribune coined as “fierce exhilarating dancemaking” at 8 p.m. in the Valéncia Arts Center, located at 10th and Vila streets.

The Flying Foot Forum is a vibrant and bold percussive dance/theater company that fuses percussion and percussive dances with many other forms of music, dance and theater, telling unusual tales, creating a wild variety of characters, and exploring universal ideas in inventive and exciting new ways.

Chvala has worked as a director, choreographer, writer, composer, performer, and teacher for opera companies, experimental and nonexperimental theatres, concert dance venues, performing arts academies, and universities. Located in Minneapolis since 1990, Chvala previously worked in New York and Gothenburg, Sweden.

Tickets are $15 for adults or $10 for seniors and students and are available at the SMU Box Office, (507) 457-1715, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays or online at www.pagetheatre.org.

In conjunction with their visit, Chvala and the dancers will present a free lecture/demonstration on the history of tap and jazz dance at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 21, at the Valéncia Arts Center. The artists will also conduct master classes with Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts students July 22-23. For more information, call (507) 453-5500 or go to www.mnconservatoryforthearts.org.

Saint Mary’s “Off The Page” events feature Minnesota artists in venues around town throughout the year. Enjoy additional Page Series-quality performances at other convenient, accessible locations in Winona!

Saint Mary’s is a fiscal year 2011 recipient of an Institutional Presenter Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4, 2008.