UW Dance Department

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Maureen Janson Heintz

Four dancers intertwined on stage.

“Foreground Noise,” choreographed by UW Dance Department faculty member Collette Stewart.

Every year this excellent introduction to the dance world takes place on the UW-Madison campus. This fall's Faculty Concert features something quite different — still recovering from an injury, Omari Carter will present his film called finding my feet, a “docu-dance that explores the frustrations, doubts and struggle of an injured dancer.” Li Chiao-Ping will present two works, Side x Side, a new duet, and Earth, an ensemble work for six dancers that draws on the I Ching. Collette Stewart, Jin-Wen Yu, and guest artist Takehiro Ueyama will all present works as well, inspired by the natural world, desire, and creation myths, Shows are at 8 p.m. on Nov. 21-22 and at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 23.

media release: The UW-Madison Dance Department presents Faculty Concert Fall 2024, featuring work from Omari Carter, Li Chiao-Ping, Collette Stewart, Jin-Wen Yu, and guest artist Takehiro Ueyama at the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, Lathrop Hall, at 8 pm on November 21-22 and 2:30 pm on Nov. 23, 2024.

Purchase tickets at the Campus Arts Box Office, 1st floor Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, by phone at 608-265-2787 or online at www.artsticketing.wisc.edu, $25 general admission and $19 students and seniors. Tickets can also be purchased at the door one hour before the performances.

The program will include two works by Li Chiao-Ping. She will present “Side x Side,” a new duet that uses a dream state to explore the concept of relationship as structural, pragmatic, and life-affirming and “Earth,” an ensemble work for six dancers that references the female receptive (yin) energy explained in the I CHING, or Book of Changes. To capture the range of this concept, Li imbues yin (female) with greater complexity–a sense of community, solidarity, and strength.

Jin-Wen Yu will present “Water,” a duet featuring the music of Rene Aubry, and performed by the original 2016 cast, Yun-Chen Liu and Collette Stewart. The work, which has been performed in Chicago and at the DUMBO festival in Brooklyn, NY, uses water symbolically and literally as a means to cool down possessive desire as well as purify the spirit.

Omari “Motion” Carter will present his film “finding my feet,” a docu-dance that explores the frustrations, doubts and struggle of an injured dancer. Carter, who is still in the midst of rehabilitation from an injury, confronts his inability to move in ways that he once did through talks with cinematographer James Williams.

Also on the program is Collette Stewart’s “Life & Death,” a work for seven dancers. This quirky revision of the creation myth emphasizes the interconnectedness of life and the ordinariness of death and is a seamless blend of dance and storytelling, that takes a light-hearted stroll through the human journey of success, failure and meaning, and lands in the beauty of everything.

Guest artist Takehiro Ueyama will spend three weeks in residence setting a contemporary work on student dancers and will teach masterclasses throughout his residency. Ueyama is the artistic director and founder of TAKE Dance, a New York City-based contemporary dance company praised for its exciting athletic movement and unusual sensitivity to create distinctive work.

About Takehiro Ueyama

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Takehiro “Take” Ueyama moved to the United States in 1991 to study dance at the Juilliard School in New York City. Upon graduation, he was invited to join the Paul Taylor Dance Company, touring the world with them for eight years.

In 2003 Ueyama debuted his first choreographic work, Tsubasa, performed with fellow Taylor dancers at the McKenna Theatre at SUNY New Paltz, NY, and in 2005 founded TAKE Dance, a contemporary dance company whose mission is to create and stage works that deepen society’s sensitivity and understanding of the human condition.

Ueyama has performed as a guest artist with Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theatre. His television and film credits include PBS’s Dance in America series (with the Taylor Company), Acts of Ardor, and Dancemaker, a film by dancer/choreographer Matthew Diamond.

Having been a baseball player in Japan before fully committing to dance, Ueyama’s work blends both eastern and western sensibilities. Containing powerful athleticism, as well as traces of his Japanese heritage by employing delicate gestures, his repertoire has been inspired by the beauty in nature, the duality of darkness and light in the universal human condition and the humanity and compassion in day-to-day living. These elements, combined with his various partnerships and collaborations with artists of other genres, lend diversity to movement, music and subject matter. Described as both sensitive and exciting, Ueyama’s choreography ensures a place for the heart on any stage it appears, a feast for the eyes, mind and soul; it is uniquely, “TAKE.”

In 2005 Ueyama’s ‘s work, Sakura Sakura was a prizewinner at the International Modern Dance Choreographic Competition in Spain, and he was one of four choreographers selected for 2006 Free to Rep at FSU’s Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. In 2010 he was the first choreographer to win the S & R Foundation’s prestigious Washington Award. Ueyama received the 2015 Jadin Wong Award for Emerging Asian American choreographer by Asian American Arts Alliance.

Ueyama has created and re-staged works for The Alvin Ailey School, Tallahassee Ballet, The New School, The Juilliard New Dances, Purchase College, Princeton University, Vassar College, Marymount Manhattan College, Randolph College, The Hartt School, Adelphi University, Roger Williams University, Grand Valley State University, University of New Mexico, Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School, the International Summer Dance in Burgos, Spain and ArcDanz in Mexico, Circo Fantazztico in Cost Rica and Trainor Dance.



This concert is presented and produced by the UW-Madison Dance Department. Takehiro Ueyama’s residency was made possible with the generous support of the Anonymous Fund.