Choreographing for “Il Ratto dal Serraglio”

The past two weeks I’ve been working with a group of musicians and opera singers organized by the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza. Every summer the famous Teatro Olympico holds weekly musical events and this year the season opener is Mozart’s comedy, “Il Ratto dal Serraglio” (The abduction from Serraglio).

Since this is a first for me working on an opera I didn’t really know quite what to expect. My assignment was to create a fun and funny dance to Mozart’s Turkish Dance for a choir of 25, each of whom needed to dance with a newspaper. The choir members were very good sports as they listened carefully to my beginning Italian teaching them the steps and sequences to the dance work. I think for many of them this was their first time learning and performing a strongly choreographed section – and they have performed exceptionally well! Beyond setting a short dance work I’ve been helping with staging and some minimal choreography for the main characters in the opera.

It has been a thrill to work with a full orchestra, choir, and masterful singers in such a stunning venue! The opera opens tomorrow night, May 20 at 18:00 at the Teatro Olympico and will run until Wednesday, May 23. Click on the link for more info about the show.

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“Widows…Temporarily” watch now!

Widows, Temporarily from Kristen Jeppsen Groves on Vimeo.

Widows…Temporarily
Directed by: Kristen Jeppsen Groves
Dancers and Military Spouses: Melissa Baker, Veronica Hovander, Brittany Starr, and Erica Constancio
Music: “Hallelujah” by Vitamin Strings Quartet
Location: Vicenza,Italy

Widows, Temporarily is a short dance film I created for the Artist, Interrupted national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. It premiered last weekend at the “Initial Impressions” dance concert which included 26 dance artists who each explored a different letter of the alphabet under a time limit of 1 minute and 30 seconds. My letter was W and I focused on “women, waiting, war, wives, wishing”, and of course, “Widows…Temporarily.”

Special thanks to my friends and fellow military spouses: Melissa Baker, Veronica Hovander, Brittany Starr, and Erica Constancio for their work and willingness to create the film.

A few of my favorite performances…

Yep…took me long enough to get some of this video on my performance page, but here it is. Segments from works by Bebe Miller’s “How to Remember” and Susan Hadley’s “Blue Grass”. Watching the performances made me itch to dance live again soon. Check out other performances on my Performance page.

“Blue Grass” Susan Hadley, Dance Downtown 2009

“How to Remember” Bebe Miller, Dance Downtown 2010

“Widows, Temporarily” premiers at Artist, Interrupted “Initial Impressions” March 23, 2012 at the Sugar Space in SLC.

“Widows, Temporarily” is a dance film I directed and choreographed with a group of current military spouses stationed in Vicenza, Italy. The film is continuation of my military arts work I have been exploring since May 2011. The work will be presented at the national Artist, Interrupted performance “Initial Impressions” on March 23, 2012 at the Sugar Space in Salt Lake City. Two performances that evening at 6:00 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m.! If you are in Utah, please support the A.I. artists!

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“The People’s Evolution” presented at BYU’s DancEnsemble concert, March 16-17, 2012

I re-set “The People’s Evolution” for Brigham Young University’s DancEnsemble concert, March 16-17, 2012. Resetting work is always a bit surreal simply because artistic style and ideas change over time with experience. It is often amusing to review old work and rediscover why and how the work was created. The cast of six dancers at BYU worked exceptionally fast and performed the piece well. The work will be presented again at the “Cover the Night” on April 20th, 2012.

Along with setting my work, I taught master classes for two different technique classes. BYU has stellar technical dancers so I tried to offer some new perspectives to dance training and performance by focusing on the following elements in my master classes: violence, thrust, propulsion, body problems, and risk. After a few classes I saw many of the students access a rawness and efficiency in their movement that allowed them to increase their range and break limits of their dance habits. It was a very rewarding teaching experience. A special thanks to Pam Musil and Marilyn Berrett for arranging my wonderful guest artist experience at BYU!

“Gray Matters” premiers March 2 & 3 at Ohio Wesleyan University

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“Dancers dart through shafts of light on an empty stage in “Gray Matters” by guest choreographer Kristen Jeppsen Groves. A military wife interested in the current political unrest in the Middle East, Groves uses explosive movement and dynamic partnering to explore social media as an agent for social upheaval or mindless complacency.” – Ohio Wesleyan University

Ohio Wesleyan to Present ‘Orchesis 2012’ Dance Performance.

“Gray Matters” will be presented at Ohio Wesleyan’s Orchesis 2012 Dance Concert at OWU’s Chappelear Drama Center next week, March 2 and 3, 2012. Here are a few images from my week-long guest residency. With my move to Italy and spending a lot of time in the military community, most of my work now has revolved current crisis of the Euro zone and military conflicts. The work explored crucial “action/reaction” moments of individuals and how those can relate to actions/reactions of governments, economies, and militaries. The students were exceptional to work with and I was very happy with the outcome of “Gray Matters”. Good luck to Orchesis as you prepare for your concert!

Ohio Wesleyan, BYU, and more

The past week and into this week I have been busy working with two university dance groups. I recently returned from Ohio where I set Gray Matters on Ohio Wesleyan’s new Orchesis company. It was an extremely rewarding experience to work with dancers from OW and Gray Matters will premiere at the spring concert in March. Pics and video to come.

This week I am setting my work The People’s Evolution at BYU for the DancEnsemble Winter Concert as well as teaching master classes to BYU dance majors. I am also setting a work Second Future at Copper Hills High School for the CHHS Dance in Concert this spring. I’ve loved having a quick trip to the states to dance, create, and continually learn more about choreography and teaching.