Carol Hess and Doug Hamby will premiere new work at Phoenix Dance Company's concert at UMBC February 12 through 15.

Hess' new work involves the intricate manipulation of sounds, as movements by dancers Mandi Brown, Evan Davidson and Pamela Stevens interact with a "wired" setpiece to create layers of random sounds that include rings, buzzes and beeps from telephones and cell phones. Underlying these sounds is a score by UMBC music department chair Linda Dusman entitled Sorry, Your Call Did Not Go Through, a mixture of voice messages from telephone answering machines. Onstage will be an array of speakers, enabling the voice messages to come from various locations in space.

Interplay by Hamby is a quartet which enlivens and intertwines the rich physical, temporal and spatial connections between the performers.

The program also includes Hess' Private Property (1995), a "duet" for dancer and cameraperson to music by UMBC music professor Stuart Saunders Smith. The dancer's movements are captured by the camera, then manipulated and projected onto a large screen onstage. The piece, performed by Pamela Stevens and Nick Prevas, alludes to issues of privacy and surveillance.

Bonds, an excerpt from Hess' Four Gestures (2002), features three dancers who explore different interactions through inventive partnering. The dancers themselves (Mandi Brown, Evan Davidson, Eileen Mitchell) capture the piece on camera, using a variety of hand-held camera techniques. The images of the live performance are mixed (live) with an unusual combination of images of Ground Zero and nature, with a music score by Linda Dusman.

Artist-in-Residence Jeanine Dunning contributes Part One Parting, a solo performed by Sandra Lacy, with original electronic music by composer Chris Peck. Structured like a short story, Part One Parting follows a woman who recalls an event in her life over and over again. In this episodic solo, the dream-like sequences reflect the idea of memory and how we remember and re-experience events.

A professional company in residence at UMBC, Phoenix is co-directed by Hess and Hamby. Operating at the intersection between art and technology, the Phoenix Dance Company has explored radical dance collaborations with UMBC videographers, mechanical engineers, computer programmers and visual artists. Founded in 1983, Phoenix Dance Company has played in venues such as the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Theatre Project, Ohio State University, Judson Church, Goucher College, McDaniel College, Salisbury University and Temple University.

All performances will be held at 8 p.m. in the UMBC Theatre. Admission is $15 general and $7 students/seniors. For more information and reservations call (410) 455-6240.