Photo by Carl Modica

Solos

Reach 2007
Composer:  Mark Olivieri
Length:  5:30
     Reach is a work to an original score by composer Mark Olivieri performed to live violin and cello.    Reach explores the physicality of remaining in one place.  Just as the musical score is expanding toward an apex, the movement expands to fill the space around the dancer by extending the limbs and joints out into carefully driven trajectories.

Photo by Carl Modica
Girasol (Sunflower) 2007
Choreographer and Performer:  Melanie Aceto
Poet: Loss Pequeño Glazier
     Girasol (Sunflower)" engages, through multimedia (digital poetry and dance), cultural themes related to the Caribbean third world. The text is not narrative, nor descriptive, but aims to evoke an immersion into the culture through language itself, using English as well as some Spanish, where expressive of contour, content, and cultural location.

Photo by Carl Modica
Dancer Mad 2001
Music: Hungarian Dance #5, Claudio Abbado;
Composed by Johannes Brahms
Length: 6:00
     Dancer Mad is a light-hearted solo exploring the idea of moving to music that is heard only in the dancer's head and not audible to the audience.   This solo gives the audience a chance to realize that at times, in dance, they are seeing both: the music heard in the dancer's soul and the music that is being played.

Photo by Carl Modica
Point of Departure 2004
Composer: Beethoven, "Moonlight Sonata I - Adagio sostenuto"
Length: 6:45
     Point of Departure is a luscious solo bringing attention to the space that surrounds us. Gliding across the floor, Melanie paints across the stage, pushing, pulling, and moving the very air that we breathe. A satisfying solo; it explores Melanie's favored movement style.

Photo by Frederique Porter
ARTiculations 2005
Music:  The Klezmatics; Kolomeyke and Moroccan Game
     ARTiculations is a vibrant, highly energized solo.  It begins as a musical visualization of the high-speed Klezmer music.  The movements and gestures articulate the body’s potential.  The first half explores the music driving the body.  The second half explores the body driving the body.

Electra
Choreography: Sondra Fraleigh
Composer: Brian Bevelander, "Ritual" and "Interpolated Rhythm"
     Electra was choreographed for the 2004 Heidelberg College New Music and Dance Festival in Tiffin, Ohio. Inspired by the mood and ideas presented in the music, Electra is an exciting and intensely wacky piece complete with chair flipping, tripping, and knuckle tapping. The piece was made in collaboration with Melanie.

Into Another
Image Movement Sound Festival, Rochester, NY, 2004
Composer: Mark Olivieri
Media: Bill Klingensmith
     Into Another is a solo dance accompanied by solo guitar. The dance, accompanied by live music, takes place behind, through and in front of a white screen/door slit through the middle, against which the image is projected. This piece explores the ideas of transition and passing through from one time or place into another time or place. Into Another was made for the Image Movement Sound Festival which brings together choreographers, composers and visual artists to make work.  

Re-Entry
SUNY Geneseo, 2001
Music: Björk
     Re-Entry is an exploration of coming back to the same place, but in a different role. It is a dynamically strong and aggressive solo.

From the Back of the Room
St. Mark's Church, NYC, 1999
Music: Morphine
     From the Back of the Room was made for the Dancers Responding to AIDS concert in NYC with St. Mark's Church performance space in mind.  

The Wedding Dance
Rochester, NY
Music: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
     This piece was made in celebration of my sister's wedding. It was performed in the reception space in the style of royalty, oriented with the bride and groom in their "thrones" at the front.

Group Work

Knit (duet) 2008
Choreography: Melanie Aceto
Composer: Ping Jin
Length: 8.5 minutes
     Knit explores the interlacing of two bodies; the physical and emotional connections of being in very close proximity. Each section embraces the melodies and themes in Ping Jin’s compositions that are based on traditional Chinese folk songs.

Photo by Carl Modica
Contextual Conduct (duet) 2007
Choreography:  Melanie Aceto and Kerry Ring
Sound choices:  Corelli, Donizetti, Gayten/Bocage, Newton, Verdi, Ziporyn
Length:  10 minutes total; 5 minute duet performed twice
     Contextual Conduct is an exploration of how music affects the audience’s perception of meaning.  Each night the dance is performed twice to two different musical selections chosen by the audience, offering two different contexts in which the piece can be seen.  

Suite for Jules 2007
I.  Cutting Contest (trio)
II.  Reach (solo)
III.  Rationing of the Artichokes (quartet)
Composer:  Mark Olivieri
Instrumentation: Violin and Cello
Length:  14 Minutes
     Each of the three sections in Suite for Jules, an original piece for live violin and cello, integrates the musicians into the piece and acknowledges their physicality as dance. Whether the aggressor driving the movement, the theoretical ‘strings’ guiding the movement like a marionette puppeteer, or the boundary containing the movement, the musicians are an integral part of the choreography, not simply musical accompaniment.

Photo by Carl Modica
Homage a Trois (8 dancers) 2006
Composer:  Mark Olivieri
Music:  Homage a Trois
Pianist:  Nicola Melville 
Length:  12 minutes

Resemblance (duet) 2006
Choreography:  Melanie Aceto
Music: Accordéon Mélancolique
Dancers:  Melanie Aceto, Claire Jacob-Zysman
Length:  9 minutes
     Resemblance is a playful and curious duet that considers the questions we have about who we are when we see our own image and who we are seen in relation to others.  The duet considers what part of ourselves is our original nature and what we are as a reflection, a product, of those around us.

Dissuasion (trio) 2006
Choreography:  Melanie Aceto
Music:  Trio
Composer:  Mark Olivieri
Live Musicians:  James Krehbiel, violin, Elizabeth Simkin, cello, Sar Shalom Strong, piano
Length:  8.5 minutes
     The music, both ethereal and volcanic, drives the dance.  Because of the interaction between the live music and the dance, this piece is a strong example of the energy created when the music feeds the dance and the dance feeds the musicians. 

Photo by Carl Modica
Relative to Here (10 dancers) 2005
Length: 12 minutes
     Utilizing the power of ten bodies, Relative to Here explores spatial extremes and evolutionary like progressions calling to our attention to the relative position of our place here on earth.  Relative to Here is a mesmerizing group piece integrating partnering, sensory communication and a lush, sweeping movement vocabulary.

Photo by Carl Modica
Territory (6 dancers)
Composer: Brian Bevelander
Length: 7 minutes
     Set in a space striped from wings and curtains, Territory utilizes 2 benches and the borders created by lighting to explore 4 different territories. The use of solo, duet, quartet and sextet both describe and inscribe the space.  

Stand/Line Up/Tip (quartet)
Choreography: Melanie Aceto
Music: Bobby McFerrin, conductor and vocalist
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Allegro
     Stand, Line Up and Tip are three short pieces that are part of a (as of yet untitled) eight-section piece, danced on, around and under a bench. The movement and choreographic ideas are inspired directly by the musical selections, each of which seeks to explore a unique mood and movement theme. The bench is rotated 45 degrees in between each of the eight sections.

Photo by Carl Modica
Vane (quintet)
Composer: Jonathan Thomas Miller
"Desert Poems for String Quartet"
I. Dances of the Modern Windmill
     Vane was choreographed for the 2004 Heidelberg College New Music and Dance Festival in Tiffin, Ohio. Inspired by the intensity of the music, Vane is chaos and military order, hesitation and confidence, and linear while round. Vane is an exciting group piece that eats up the space in 3-D.

Have Feet Will Travel (8 dancers)
ACDFA, Frostburg MD, Geneseo, Spring 2001, (8 dancers)