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Show I 1 s '( i , x ' Avwx A S ; V' xV TxxW Xxx i?Nt' x.yx. j X'X X'Xx 4' Burch Manns American Folk Ballet, one of the worlds great dance companies, will present a special season in the Centrum next month. Ame&icaiii Gala dance festival set for Centrum Aug. The American Folk Ballet will celebrate its 25th festival this summer in anniversary with a y Cedar City. Under the direction of the companys founder, Burch Mann, the Aug. 11 through 22 festival will offer, in rotation, the American Folk Ballets centerpiece production, The Prairie Years, and two world premieres, The Old South and The Texas Breed. at Mann, a distinguished Souhern Utah State, moved her company from Pasadena, Calif., to Cedar City five years ago to reestablish its roots in a rural setting. And, in keeping w'ih her unique dance style, the silver anniversary festival will give audiences a look at the colorful and vibrantly alive men and women Mann preceives as having poineered the American frontier. Scheduled to take place in the $8 million SUSC Centrum, the 25tn anniversary festival will feature 15 performances, four of them afternoon matinees. Curtain is at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are now available at the Centrum Box Office, (801) 12-da- artist-in-residen- maEUis 25SEu aEiraiversapy will two FoBEi BalBeft 11-2- and 2 feature Copies of the festival brochure are available at the Centrum and at the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce. Born on her grandfather's ranch in Texas, Mann traces her inspiration to the roots of the land. She insists that her young dancers develop great technical power, but ...only since it gives them the ability to express what is in their hearts. expect them (the dancers) to bring to life the individualistic, strong-willeunpolished, unfenced and the poineer, poineer society that discarded all that was ad.ficial, pretentious or superfluous. she says, want the company to have the scent of wood smoke, the restlessness that sent Americans west, and the masculine force of the 586-787- 2. I d, I frontier. The Prairie Years, long the focal point of the American Folk Ballet repertoire, is about a time when ...the unfenced land went on forever and a mans word was his bond. Here is the West of legend the cowboys and Indians, the dances of feisty Scottish and Irish immigrants, the tragic premieres plus an old favorite Streets of Laredo and the excitement of a Party at Granpa Whartons. Manns The Old South is new to the AFB concert that repertoire, an ambitious three-pataps into the rich repository of Americas southern heritage. Starting with Whippoorwill County and the fish fries, river baptisms and Stoney Mountain clogging of the southern hill people, the action moves on to Summer Thunder and the lives of the wealthy plantation owner The program ends with Delta Country, a look at New Orleans and the origins of jazz. The Texas Breed will transport the AFB festival audience back more than 100 years to party at the Bremmerhassen ranch in Live Oak County, Texas. Mann has created this new concert to show off the southeastern part of the Lone Star State where it dips into the red waters of the Rio Grande, and where Spanish and Mexican peoples intertwined to produce a culture that is remembered, romantically, as long as men think back longingly to the freedom of the West. all-o- ut rt Anglo-America- n, |