Jeffry Steele & Friends Performance Offerings
School Assembly Programs & Workshops
10/26/98
Essex Elementary School

6/4/99 12:00 & 1:00 PM
Rockport Middle School

6/11/99 11 AM
St. Mel's School, East Gloucester

10/26/99
Ipswich Elementary Schools

11/17/99
Beeman School, Gloucester
9:30 & 10:30 AM

12/20/99
Triton Regional, Byfield
10 & 11 AM

For fees & booking information contact Jeffry Steele at 978-282-3106 or e-mail

More photos of Carl & Anna at: Clear Away in Photos & Music

Carl and Anna airborn (from "Clear Away")Assembly presentation:

1] Opening: Fight, Fisherman's Vow, Childhood I and Pas de Deux from "Clear Away".Music by Jeffry Steele, choreographed by Carl & danced with Anna

2] Moving to a Song (I): "I see with my Hands" (K-4) or "If I had a Hammer" (5-12) Carl teaches literal gestures to audience while Jeffry teaches lyrics and melody.

Moving to a Song (II): Carl dances to same song, in a more interpretive style, while audience sings it with Jeffry.

3] Student movement group: A class of students that has met with Carl and Jeffry in a workshop prior to this presentation -- or a class that has simply been recruited ahead of time -- comes up on stage and models movements depicting the different phases of the Water Cycle (raindrops, puddles, stream, river, ocean, evaporation, thunderstorm). Evoking distinct textures for each movement, Jeffry accompanies them on guitar. This may also involve (particularly if a workshop is held with them beforehand) some students underscoring the music with hand percussion instruments.

4] Movement Machine: Teachers are then invited up to the stage to become part of a repetitive movement "assembly line", which begins with one person, then adds another every few measures -- each participant feeding off the preceding one until there is a large accumulation spanning the stage. Jeffry provides musical accompaniment with his synthesizer-guitar piece, "Jacob's Dream" -- which employs a mechanical-sounding ostinato and a one-second echo. Carl then dances through the audience -- leading students in a medley of movements seen earlier in the program -- until the music concludes.

5] Reprise of Pas de Deux or Question/Answer Period
 
Carl Thomsen, co-director of Dancers Courageous Studio, has been a professional dancer and teacher for 28 years. In New York City, he performed and taught with Gus Solomons Co/Dance, Richard Bull and the Improvisational Dance Ensemble, Colloquium Dance Company and Marjorie Mussman. Carl operated his own studio in New York before moving to Gloucester in 1992. He currently teaches modern dance and ballet to adults. His children's dance program, Power Movesª, combines his love of storytelling with his knowledge of dance. He is Director of Gloucester Legends and teaches in the School Program in most of the area's public schools.
Anna Shoub is from Toronto, Canada. She began her dance training at the School the the Toronto Dance Theater. She then moved to New York City where she studied and demonstrated for classes, as a scholarship student, at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. While in New York, Anna performed with the Perl Lang Dance Co. In 1992 she moved to the Boston area and performed and taught for the Peanut Butter and Jelly Dance Co. and performed with the North Shore Civic Ballet. In addition to dancing with Carl Thomsen, Anna presently works with Jennifer Uhl along with choreographing and performing her own work. She teaches in and around Boston and has appeared as Guest Teacher in New York and at Salem State College. She has also coordinated and taught ÒArtists in the SchoolsÓ programs in Toronto.
Jeffry Steele received his first paid commission (composing film music) while a college sophomore. Since then, he has written for theater, public TV and concert settings. His principal teachers of guitar were David Starobin and Phillip de Fremery and of composition, Lewis Spratlan. As a guitarist, he has performed around New England in schools, colleges, festivals and churches. He also both weathered and enjoyed a period of teaching music in the K-8 classroom. One of his CDs is on Centaur Records and six others are available (and two more shortly on the way) on his own Prism label (http://jeffrysteele.com). He returned to live in Gloucester -- the city of his birth -- in 1995, and teaches guitar in his own studio as well as at Endicott College.

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