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Anthony Roberts Reprises multimedia dance piece 'Swing a Club: Facing Cancer'

By Elizabeth Child
October 28, 2004

Roberts&Klopchin04
Roberts and Klopchin perform in Swing a Club
Swing a Club: Facing Cancer, a multimedia dance piece that brings to life themes of struggle, support and letting go, will be performed Thursday, Nov. 4 through Saturday, Nov. 6 in St. Olaf College's Dittmann Center, Wagner/Bundgaard Studio One. All performances, free and open to the public, begin at 7:30 p.m. Free-will donations to the American Cancer Society will be taken. Audience members are invited to stay for a post-performance discussion each evening to ask questions, make comments or share their stories and experiences with cancer. Call 507-646-3248 for more information.

Swing a Club was created and choreographed by Anthony Roberts, artist-in-residence for the St. Olaf College Dance Department. Roberts and nine other performers explore and convey the images, thoughts and emotions experienced by Roberts when he lost his brother Tom, 43, to melanoma on March 31, 2001. The dance combines movement, visual arts, text and music, all fashioned by Roberts. It is an intimate, personal work, yet the story told is ubiquitous, touching anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one.

The work, which premiered in April 2004, has been reprised because of overwhelming audience response to its artistic beauty and also because it is a catalyst for healing. "The responses showed me the power, passion and joy of the work, and the worth of sharing it with others," says Roberts, who encourages community members to come to campus for the concert. The piece will also be performed at the Bloomington Center for the Arts, March 18 and 19, 2005, and plans are underway for a cross-country tour, including Roberts'home town of Johnson City, Tenn.

Last year Roberts received dozens of responses from audience members like the following from St. Olaf junior Stephanie Smith: "I just wanted to tell you again how moving your performance was. My uncle is struggling with bone and lung cancer at the moment and to have something like that to relate with and see was exactly what I needed."

Throughout the multifaceted work, Roberts delves deeply into the caregiver's view of cancer. Swing a Club interweaves a video memoir of his brother before and during his illness and dialog between Roberts and a therapist, played by Dona Werner Freeman, an artist-in-residence for the St. Olaf Theatre Department. His aesthetic choice of graceful, flowing and sensitive movement, combined with video, technologically produced sounds and theatrical interludes allow "multiple points of entry," Roberts explains. "People are going to 'get it'; itýs going to take them to their experience with cancer."

While that experience can be dark, Roberts says there is joy in the piece, too: "It's not a light work, but in the middle of pain was love. If love doesn't bring you joy then something is displaced about that."

Contact Elizabeth Child at 507-646-3032 or ec@elizabethchild.com.