Arts of War on the Web

“Into Sunlight,” the dance piece created last year by the Robin Becker Dance group in New York, will have its Washington, D.C.,  premiere on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, at 8:00 p.m. at Georgetown University’s Davis Performing Arts Center’s Gonda Theatre.

The work was inspired by the journalist David Maraniss’s excellent 2003 book,They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace: America and Vietnam, October 1967. In it, Maraniss examines  two events that took place that month: the decimation of a battalion of U.S. Army First Infantry Division troops in South Vietnam, and the violence that ensued on the University of Wisconsin campus during a student protest against the Dow Chemical Company.

At both D.C. performances, Maraniss will be on hand to introduce the dance and take part in a post-show discussion with the artists and audience.

Tickets are $18 for general admission and $10 for students and veterans. For info, go to http://performingarts.georgetown.edu or call 202-687-2787.

VVA honored the internationally renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp in 2004 with our President’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for her big Broadway show Movin’ Out, the Vietnam War-themed production done to the tune of 23 Billy Joel songs.

Another winner of the President’s Award, Nancy Sinatra, has had a hand in Tharp’s latest Broadway musical, Come Fly Away, which features the tunes of her father, Frank Sinatra, and which has just begun a North American tour. Several veteran dancers who have performed in Movin’ Out on Broadway and on the road—including Laurie Kanyok, Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Cody Green, John Selya and Ron Todorowski—are a part of the Come Fly Away road show ensemble.

Conceived, choreographed, and directed by Tharp, and by special arrangement with the Sinatra family and Frank Sinatra Enterprises, Come Fly Away tells the story of four couples falling in and out of love during one song-and-dance-filled evening at a bustling nightclub. It blends the recordings of Frank Sinatra with a live onstage big band and fourteen exceptional dancers.

The show opened on Broadway in March of last year. It just ended its initial tour run at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, and opens August 16 in Toronto. Other cities on the tour include Detroit,  Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

For complete details on those and the other road venues, go to www.comeflyaway.com.

During the 1980s and 1900s colleges and universities seemed to be putting on some sort of Vietnam War academic conference, seminar, panel discussion or other type of similar event on a fairly regular basis. But these days academic Vietnam War conferences are about as rare as kind-hearted drill instructors.

The good news is that beginning on Thursday, April 14, Hofstra University on Long Island will present “Into Sunlight: The Impact of War on the Social Body From the Vietnam Era to the Present,” a three-day, multi-faceted academic conference. On the agenda: lectures, panel discussions, speak-outs, art exhibits, and performance events.

The guest star is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss, the author of the exceptionalVietnam War non-fiction book, They Marched Into Sunlight. Maraniss will be the Keynote speaker and will take part in several other events.

What’s unique about this conference is that it was conceived of by a Hofstra Professor of Dance, Robin Becker, who, inspired by Maraniss’ book, created a full-length dance piece, “Into Sunlight,” which will be performed at the conference.

Also on the wide-ranging and ambitious agenda: the world premiere of a play, Undeclared History, which is based on Vietnam War era oral histories of Hofstra graduates, including veterans, antiwar activists, journalists, and faculty members.

On Friday, April 8, the panels include “Diagnosis and Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” with Edward Tick, the founding director of Soldier’s Heart: Veterans Safe Return Programs.

You can find out more by calling 516-463-5669 or going to the conference web site.

The internationally renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp was one of six recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors on December 7. Tharp and the other awardees—Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who, Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman, and George Jones—were honored at a White House reception and at a Kennedy Center gala for their distinguished careers and contributions to the arts.

Tharp has choreographed more than 135 dances, five Hollywood movies, directed and choreographed three Broadway shows, and written two books since graduating from college in 1963. One of the Broadway shows was Movin’ Out, the Vietnam War-themed production done to the tune of 23 Billy Joel songs. VVA honored Tharp for that outstanding show with our President’s Award for Excellence in the Arts at the National Leadership Conference in in 2004 in Nashville.

Tharp gave a great acceptance speech in Nashville, and since then has been very supportive of VVA and Vietnam veterans. On her web site she lists the honors and awards she has received over the long career, and includes the VVA award among them. To wit: one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, nineteen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the Jerome Robbins Prize, The Kennedy Center Honors and many grants including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.

Choreographer David Dorfman’s “underground” isn’t exactly your normal dance-theater production. As it’s (non-capitalized) name might suggest, is based on the violent anti-Vietnam War protests of the radical Weather Underground in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.

As you might surmise, the piece consists of energetic groups of dancers moving about the stage raising clenched fists and pantomiming throwing objects that could be rocks or even bombs. The dancer/actors also make mini-speeches about the goals of violent protest.

The 50-minute show has been making the rounds of theaters around the nation. Next stop: Thursday and Friday (November 6 and 7) at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in College Park.