Tuesday, April 28, 2015

[353] Nymphs, sirens, water sprites visit MTSU in ‘La Mer’ dance March 26-28


MURFREESBORO — The expression of freedom through dance will bring an artistic air to MTSU’s celebration of National Women’s History Month.

Students in MTSU’s Women in Dance class will perform “La Mer,” an interpretation of Claude Debussy’s symphonic composition, at 7:30 p.m. March 26-28 in Tucker Theatre. For a campus parking map, go to http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParking14-15.

Jessica Lindberg Coxe, an instructor in ballet technique at the Greater Austin Dance Academy in Austin, Texas, will stage the dance according to the choreography of American Loie Fuller, a contemporary of Isadora Duncan and an inspiration to Martha Graham.

“She was really more instrumental in moving forward theater technology and the idea of using the theatre space to really transport the audience than she was … considered at the time a dancer,” Coxe said. “It’s only been recently that her contributions as a dancer, as a mover, her ideas of natural movement have really come to the forefront.”

The students will embrace Fuller’s style of free-flowing garments and multicolored lighting to depict nymphs, sprites and sirens darting through ocean waters.

“It was originally done in 1900 and included a piece of fabric that covered the whole stage and became lit with these various colored lights [to] look like the sea,” said Coxe.

The ability to move unburdened by the long skirts, heavy fabrics and corsets of the era enabled Fuller to experience the kind of physical freedom few other women had.

“It’s interesting that the freedom that her movement gave her personally also was socially acceptable so that it gave women of the time freedom to go and attend her performances,” Coxe said.

General admission is $10. The fee for MTSU students and senior citizens is $5.

For more information, contact Margaret Brooker, assistant professor of dance, at

615-898-5023 or margaret.brooker@mtsu.edu, or Tucker Theatre’s box office at 615-494-8810.

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