The UCSB Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Delila Moseley, will present In Different Realms … el arte perdura, featuring works by choreographers from different realms of the dance world, sharing with viewers the imperative that “art endures” across divides. Performances will be March 15-16 in UCSB’s Hatlen Theater.

Guest artist Natasha Adorlee, a first-generation Asian-American, has restaged her piece “MOMODA” (Kiss, Kiss) created for Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Competition 2023. It explores impermanence, relationships and endearing affection, with energy and joy.

Adorlee has established herself as an award-winning creative in choreography, filmmaking, and music composition, UCSB said.

Cihtli Ocampo, lecturer in the Department of Theater and Dance, will premiere her work “Pasos” (Steps), on the company. She describes the piece as an exploration of the journey from the ties of home, family and tradition as restless travelers inch their way toward their destiny.

Of Mexican and Spanish heritage, Ocampo brings a lifetime of experience in multiple cultures to every gesture, movement and expression. She is the granddaughter of a Spanish Civil War exile and daughter of Mexican Olympic swimmer Walter Ocampo.

She views dance as the vehicle through which the body connects with the soul. Her choreographies are immersions into the daily struggles of humankind.
 
Two works by legacy choreographer José Limón will be featured in this concert, as a continuation of the “Border Crossings: Voices of Exile and Hope” debut in January at the Hatlen Theater.

Mexican born American modern dancer and choreographer Limón created “Missa Brevis” in 1958 after viewing the devastation in Poland resulting from World War II. 

Alice Condodina, professor emerita, has reconstructed excerpts from “Missa Brevis” as well as the “Running Dance from Psalm” (1967), as an “Homenaje a Limón” (homage to Limón).

Limón, one of the 20th century’s most influential dance makers left a legacy of moving choreography that celebrates the human spirit overcoming hardships.
 
Monique Meunier, associate professor in the Department of Theater and Dance, has created “Feux Follets,” (named after Liszt’s “Transcendental Etude No. 5,” the music for the piece) that has the mysterious, lilting quality of the “will-o-the-wisp.”

“Feux Follets” is a quartet that encompasses bravura, musicality, pointework, and strength with balletic lines.

Meunier danced with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. In 2016, she was appointed to the inaugural committee of School of American Ballet’s Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.