Title: Tunes for Guatemala Aka Tunes for Modern Dance
Artist: Hopkins, John
Label: CD Baby
Product Type: COMPACT DISCS
UPC: 888174782003
Genre: International

Composer's Bio: John F. Hopkins (Fort Worth, TX) performs, composes and arranges music for choir, piano, organ and symphonic orchestra. His expertise includes work with hand bell choirs, jazz combos, Celtic groups, and film scores. He directs Zimbabwe-style marimba and contemporary bands at Trinity Lutheran Church in Fort Worth, and in the summer, regularly attends Zimfest, an annual festival celebrating the music and culture of Zimbabwe. John works as a dance educator in the TCU School for Classical & Contemporary Dance where he accompanies modern dance and ballet technique classes, and teaches Music for Dancers. He has also played piano for the American Ballet Theatre summer intensives in Austin, TX, the South Central Region conferences of the American College Dance Festival Association and Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth, TX. He was awarded the Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Texas Christian University in 1982. Foreword: I place as priority setting and keeping dancers in motion. John Hopkins does more than "accompany" class: moving around and through the dancers, his tunes inhabit the space so that dance and music join to weave a three-dimensional matrix of space and time, moment to moment. Beyond the artistry of his composition, John is a brilliant educational collaborator. I often hear the concepts I have articulated to the dancers as physical challenges arise immediately in the music; he actively, yet subtly, co-teaches every class upon which we embark together. In summer 2011, I was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to teach and to choreograph in the Centro de Danza e Investigación del Movimiento at the Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala. Since I could not take John to Guatemala with me, I petitioned him for the next best option, a CD of his music that I could use when teaching technique class during this residency. The result is this compilation of tracks, designed to dovetail with the structure I follow in designing contemporary dance technique classes. Metaphorically speaking, this structure is the architecture on which I construct new class forms, over and over again. Throughout the past 25 years, I have consistently built class content through a blending of ritual and repetition with the range of motional concepts at hand, that is, movement fundamentals pertinent to the level I am teaching as well as ideas and physical/theatrical trajectories that are contemporary to the field of concert dance, a living, growing, changing entity. The following tunes move along the progressive build of classes I typically offer in terms of the tempo, dynamic range and duration. But they are composed to move any teacher and her/his group through a contemporary practice. Music for entering class, for various stages of warm-up, for across-the-floor and center work is included. The CD opens with an unmetered track, one that was developed to support individual, improvisational explorations that would usher dancers into the world of the class before them. It proceeds with 20 tracks defined herein by their metric structure and John's titles. Teachers can move through the CD sequentially, or skip around. They may choose music that supports movement already created -or- tailor movement exercises, phrases and combinations to the music provided. Some of the tracks are repeated with faster or slower tempi to accommodate either internal progressions or varying technical levels. For years TCU alumni have asked me to recommend a source of music for the modern dance classes they teach in studios, public and private schools, community centers, conservatories as well as in university dance programs. Here it is, available to all, at long last: 'Tunes for Guatemala.' Susan Douglas Roberts, MFA Professor of Dance, TCU School for Classical & Contemporary Dance Artistic Director, wild goose chase Fulbright Specialist, 2008 and 2011.

Tracks:
1.1 Everpresence (Arhythmic)
1.2 The Harp That Once'd on Susan's Floor (3X32X4) [115 BPM]
1.3 The Harp That Once'd on Susan's Floor (3X32X4) [150 BPM]
1.4 Sneaky Blues (6X12X8) [153 BPM]
1.5 Splat Clav (4X8X4) [90 BPM]
1.6 The Tattered Shawl (3X8X5X2) [94 BPM]
1.7 Hashi Hosho (4X8X16) [69 BPM]
1.8 Pocket Hocket (3X8X8X4) [191 BPM]
1.9 Hang Gliding (3X16X8) [142 BPM]
1.10 Parallax (6X8X4X2) [366 BPM]
1.11 When I Reach for You (4X8X3) [54 BPM]
1.12 Darth Dancer (4X8X4) [112 BPM]
1.13 Swan Swamp (4X16X6) [172 BPM]
1.14 Paulino's Prayer (3X16X12) [128 BPM]
1.15 That's One Small (Extra) Step, Mon (5X5X4X6) [127 BPM]
1.16 Tango de Fulbright (4X16X4) [92 BPM]
1.17 ¡ Viva Guatemala ! (3X16X4) [82 BPM]
1.18 Sirens of the Seven Seas (7X26) [84 BPM]
1.19 Polonaise Picante (3X32X3) [96 BPM][
1.20 Shifty Blues (4X12X4) [100 BPM]