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January 6, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: More information contact Hilarie Neely, 578-5462

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“ILLUMINATING THE SAWTOOTHS” - Footlight Dance Company

School Enrichment Tour – 7 shows in Blaine County

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Footlight Dance Company, under the Artistic Direction of Hilarie Neely, is proud to

announce our Company performances entitled “ILLUMINATING THE SAWTOOTHS” January 26-February 10, 2017 and invites the public to attend any of seven free shows touring Blaine County Schools. This show uses the concert dance forms of ballet, modern, jazz, hip hop, tap and folk dance with the theme of our Sawtooth National Recreation Area as our inspiration. We hope these performances will inspire and initiate discussions about our mountain environment that we live in here in the Wood River Valley using the art forms of dance and visual art. The illumination and texture of “light” as it plays on the mountains during the dawn, day, dusk, night. Each mountain range is unique in their commanding views. The Pioneers are dramatic, the Smoky’s soft and rolling, Boulder’s bold and rocky, Sawtooth’s jagged, and White Clouds are white and pure as the clouds. Students will see the Idaho Mountains in relationship to different dance forms, visualizing the ranges thru movement, fabrics and paintings. We also hope to inspire future generations of “stewards” to help protect our wilderness designation that was signed into law in 2015 by then President Obama after 15 years of work by many collaborators. We are collaborating with textile artist Leslie Rego and visual artist painter Carl Rowe to help students to see the different textures of light and landscape within the arts.

We are presenting this show to the students in our District, including the Community School, Hemingway School, Carey School, Alturas Elementary, Hailey Elementary, Bellevue Elementary, and WR Middle School.

A narration the accompanies the performances will discuss the five mountain ranges in the SNRA and use the concert dance forms of ballet, modern, jazz, tap and hip hop to see our mountains in a new light. We are ending our show with a square dance to Muzzie Braun’s iconic folk song entitled “Heart of Idaho”. He summed it up best writing about the Sawtooth Mountains in 1980’s. Even more special is that one of our dancers Samantha White is Muzzie’s niece.

Our tour of the schools will take us to Carey School, Thursday, Jan. 26, 9:30 am; Alturas School, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 11:30 am; Hemingway School, Friday, Feb. 3, 8:15 am and WR Middle School 2:35 pm; Tuesday, Feb. 7, 10:20 am Community School; Friday, Feb. 10, 9:30 am at Hailey Elementary and Bellevue Elementary School, at 1:00 pm. Public is invited to any of the school performances FREE of charge.

For more information contact Hilarie Neely, 578-5462.

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P.O. Box 3593 Ketchum, Idaho 83340

208-578-5462 Hilarie Neely, Director

Page 2 – Footlight Dance

Our company of 16 dancers attend WRHS, WRMS, and Sage School. Senior Malila Freeman will be participating in her final year of performances. Many of our dancers train as athletes taking 5-6 classes per week and are required to study Pilates Conditioning. They rehearse weekends for 6 weeks prior to the performances. These performances are always a highlight for the Company dancers, as they assume the life of a touring professional, but still keep up their class load at school. It is a wonderful experience to perform for their peers and younger students as they discover dance as an art form.

Visual Textile Artist Statement: Leslie Rego

“I draw with pen and ink, silverpoint, and pencil. I have integrated these drawings as painted textile images into my work, showcasing Idaho and reflecting the passing of time in Nature. 

I view the transitions between the seasons as metaphors for our own lives. Nature's most beautiful moments are in constant flux. The muted colors of late Autumn are lovely and rich. The very last faded blooms of summer flowers are gentle and tender. Even the mud season, after the white snow has melted, is full of promise.

My award-winning work has been juried into numerous national and international exhibitions, is in private collections, has been part of the “Art in Embassies” program, and has been featured in several publications.”

Visual Artist Statement: Carl Rowe

“I began painting in 1990 while living in the Wood River Valley of Idaho. As originally a flatlander from Illinois, my fascination and response to the foothills of southern Idaho compelled me to find a way to explore this land. Painting ultimately became the most satisfying way to do so.

Bold shapes, the play of light upon undulating surfaces, and the clearly human-like quality of the shapes of treeless hills make compelling subjects for painting. This land can be dramatic, subtle, sensuous, fragile, and highly evocative. As a former professional dancer and choreographer, these qualities especially appeal to me.”

Dance Statement: Hilarie Neely

“We dance to express our thoughts thru movement utilizing all the bodies senses. Our natural environment shapes what we see and how we react. The change in seasons, in the length of the day and how light plays on the mountains shapes how we see each moment in time.” Famous statements of dance include: *George Balanchine* The dance is the mother of the arts. Music and poetry exist in time; painting and architecture in space. But the dance lives at once in time and space. *Curt Sachs* The dancer, or dancers, must transform the stage for the audience as well as for themselves into an autonomous, complete, virtual realm, and all motions into a play of visible forces in unbroken, virtual time...Both space and time, as perceptible factors, disappear almost entirely in the dance illusion. *Susanne K. Langer* It is difficult to see the great dance effects as they happen, to see them accurately, catch them fast in memory. It is even more difficult to verbalize them for critical discussion. The particular essence of a performance, its human sweep of articulate rhythm in space and in time has no specific terminology to describe it by.

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