IOWA'S HANCHER COMMISSIONS EIGHT DANCE WORKS.

IOWA CITY, Iowa--Deep in the nation's heartland, amid rolling hills, cornfields, and small towns, nearly $1 million is being spent to develop new dance works. The University of Iowa's Hancher Auditorium is presenting an ambitious Millennium Festival, which will feature fifteen major commissions. Eight are in dance, with the remaining seven divided between theater and music. Hancher has committed $850,000 to the new commissions for its 1999-2000 season.

"I think the international dance community will be bowled over by that kind of money being spent on dance commissions," says Wallace Chappell, director of Hancher. "Only the Kennedy Center and Hancher in this country are doing major millennium emphasis that I'm aware of, and we are doing more than they are in terms of commissions of new work." Chappell recently attended a meeting in Vancouver of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA). "They also were knocked out [by the money Hancher is spending]," Chappell says. "Word is getting around."

This season's commissions are the latest of Hancher's sixty-six commissions during the last ten years. "Of those sixty-six, about half are in dance," Chappell says. "Hancher has become known as a dance hall." Previous commissions include the Jeffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker and Billboards. Productions such as those have helped build Hancher's international reputation as a leader in commissioning and presentation.

Hancher's upcoming season will feature new works by Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Bill T. Jones, Ushio Amagatsu, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Susan Marshall, and university alumnus Lar Lubovitch. The commissions will be performed by such ensembles as American Ballet Theatre, Sankai Juku, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

The dance season kicks off with the American premiere of Tharp's new Diabelli (September 17 and 18), set to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Japanese dance company Sankai Juku, a Hancher regular, returns to present the American premiere of Amagatsu's Hibiki (October 1 and 2). With this presentation, Hancher becomes that company's first American commissioner. A week later Marshall will present the world" premiere of The Descent Beckons (October 8 and 9), a meditation on death, transformation, and resurrection.

Like Tharp, Taylor has been one of the defining creators of modern dance for several decades, and his companies' performances have been Hancher favorites. Taylor 2 is in the midst of a three-season residency that links Hancher with presenters in three other Iowa communities. For the 1999-2000 Hancher season, Taylor is creating a world premiere, to be performed October 15 and 16.

Jones is another American choreographer with whom Hancher has had a long and productive relationship. Hancher has co-commissioned some of Jones's most famous and controversial works. This season, he will offer a rarity--a solo performance--on October 26, along with the world premiere of Oh? You walk? (March 24 and 25).

Lubovitch is one of the university's most distinguished alumni in the arts. He will pair up with one of America's most venerable dance institutions, American Ballet Theatre, for performances November 2 and 3. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater joins with Zollar, artistic director of Urban Bush Women, to present a new work that will make use of myth and ritual in African-American experience (November 19 and 20).

Hancher's strong association with dance began twenty-two years ago with the Joffrey Ballet, which has made twenty-one visits to Hancher in addition to summer residencies and performances in the Iowa City community. "That's the basis of our well-educated dance audience," says Chappell, adding that a Hancher survey revealed that nearly 650,000 people had seen dance presented at Hancher since the auditorium opened in 1972. "That's a knockout figure in a county of about 110,000 people, and a city [Iowa City] of about 64,000. Our dance history is just a grocery list. We've been presenting all kinds of dance for a long time--not just the Joffrey and not just ballet." Chappell notes that dance genres presented on the stage have included modern, postmodern, and butoh.