MUSIC / DANCE : ABSTRACT PROJECTIONS : Shapes and Light Fuse a Diverse Program of Works by UCI Students

“When you come upon something that immediately gives you thoughts and ideas, you just follow that,” said UC Irvine dance professor Donald McKayle, describing the spark of inspiration that led to his latest project.

During “Dances in Painted Light,” Saturday at 8:30 p.m., dancers will perform on the front lawn of the Irvine Civic Center while lit with high-wattage lights projecting brightly colored, abstract geometric patterns.

The luminous patterns will be cast not only on the center’s tall glass facade , behind the dancers, but will extend down onto the front lawn. “So the dancers are totally encased within this environment,” McKayle said.

The idea for the program sprung from McKayle’s first meeting with lighting designer Raffaella De Santis, an Italian artist living in Irvine who had staged similar lighting effects for a dance performance at a public square in Italy.

“She came to me because she’d gotten involved in using her artwork in this new form--painting on glass and having it (projected) into a kind of mural--and she thought that it had applications within choreographic work,” he said. “I agreed because her work was very exciting. . . . She showed me a photograph of abstract designs she had projected onto a building and it was quite beautiful and fascinating.”

McKayle took the idea to his graduate choreography students, who were also instantly intrigued by its possibilities for an unusual environmental program. After getting a go-ahead and support from Irvine city officials, they set to work on a program which will showcase eight of McKayle’s students with 10 pieces linked in a nonstop presentation by transitional segues.

The students are April Brannan, Jude Clark-Warnisher, Sherri Lacey, Melinda McIlwaine, Amanda Parrott, Jeffery Marc Rockland, Laura Seno and Ramon Silva.

De Santis, who has studied visual arts at UC Irvine, said she will use two Austrian-made, 6,000-watt paniprojectors that magnify and project the images she paints on 7-by-7 square inch sheets of glass inserted into the lights. For instance, if she painted a triangle on the glass, a huge triangle would appear on the Civic Center facade .

The total projection will be about 90 feet wide, she said. It will stretch along the center facade from a height of about 42 feet and down onto the grass lawn for several feet.

“The dancers will all be dressed in white, so as they move through the patterns of light, their costumes” will reflect the changing patterns and colors, De Santis said.

Each piece in the program was developed through a collaboration between De Santis and choreographers, said McKayle, who gave his students free reign to create.

“I just presented the ingredients (of the project) and their task was to come up with the concepts,” he said. The result was a program of works as diverse as the evening’s taped musical accompaniment, which ranges from avant-garde rock ‘n’ roll to recent compositions played on traditional Chinese instruments.

“Each dance is different,” McKayle said. “For example, there is one rather traditional dance staged for the environment by Ramon Silva. It’s the deer dance of Mexico, with the hunting and the killing of the deer. But it has been staged and (lit) by De Santis to make it look different than ever before.”

What: “Dances in Painted Light,” works by UC Irvine graduate choreography students.

When: Saturday, Oct. 19, at 8:30 p.m. A bring-your-own food and blanket picnic supper will begin at 6:30 p.m. No alcohol allowed.

Where: Irvine Civic Center, front lawn, corner of Harvard Avenue and Alton Parkway, Irvine.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Jamboree Boulevard, north to Alton Parkway, west to Harvard Avenue.

Wherewithal: Admission is free.

Where to call: (714) 724-6698.