Dancers flex creativity in fall concert

Author: Alexxa Gotthardt

This past weekend's Fall Dance Concert, held in the Center for the Arts Dance Theatre, was marked by intoxicating contradiction. The eclectic range of student and faculty dancers and choreographers were not aiming for coherence. There was no obvious, defined theme to the night; instead the nine dances were subtly linked by a common goal to convey genuine emotion through movement. This honesty and originality of expression fostered a stimulating performance at once diverse and fluid, playful and profound, raw and polished.

Each fall, the Dance Program presents a concert consisting primarily of student choreography. This year was no exception as students in the Intermediate/Advanced dance class conceived, in their entirety, six of the nine pieces in the show. Two of the additional pieces, while directed by Andrea Olsen, Professor of Dance and Director of The Dance Company of Middlebury, were also collaboratively created by involved student dancers. Still another work, the newcomers' piece Ostrich Glory, was jointly choreographed by Artist in Residence Tiffany Rhynard and six first-year dancers.

Though a single voice drove each piece in its initial stages, all the finished products were strengthened by the enthusiastic collaboration of choreographers and dancers. This was seen especially in The Dance Company of Middlebury's duet Partners and finale-piece Dancin'.

"There are so many things that a dance show can bring to the College community," said Olsen. "I think one is collaboration. It's an opportunity to really witness people collaborating from different cultural backgrounds and different communities across the campus - faculty and students, designers and students."

This fall's concert animatedly combined a diverse range of inspirations and backgrounds. The first piece of the performance, Etymon's Facsimile, choreographed by Tatiana Virviescas Mendoza '07, set the stage for the originality and imagination that characterized the concert. Mendoza's Columbian heritage and her fascination with memory, tradition and community were clear as Facsimile dancers leapt energetically around the evocative props, gazed at the guitar-bearing troubadour who entered the stage, swung their skirted hips to sensual Latin song and intertwined limbs in smooth partnering and excited play. Sudden changes in music tempo and the dancers' formation - from groups to duets to solos - communicated a tangible sense of restlessness and the excitement of exploration.

The electric spandex outfits and wildly contrasting movement of junior Adriane Medina's Calendar-Balancing also generated a contagious sense of energy and excitement: one minute the dancers' pliable bodies jerked frenetically across stage, while the next minute arms, legs and torsos rolled over and around each other in graceful shared weight.

Ostrich Glory used innovative methods of dialogue and narrative in contrast and combination with dance to pull the audience further into the performance. Though at times the text distracted from the movement, the first-years shone in this whimsical and emotive piece. They simulated airplanes, spoke of the day's activities, played a vigorous game of hide-and-seek, struck comical yet disconcerting poses as "deer in headlights" and responded with invigorating movement to music, scenario, word and each other's sprints, leaps, jerks and lifts.

Olsen's Partners changed the energetic tone of the first half of the show with its more somber, otherworldly aura. Louisa Irving '07 and Simon Thomas-Train's '09 statuesque poses and tender partnering were set against an eternal woodland projection and a beat-driven African-inspired score by Philip Hamilton '82. What began as a simple, sweet façade of a relationship transformed into something much deeper and affecting when the music stopped and the audience found themselves listening to the duo's heavy breathing and concentrating on the tension-filled moments of touch and release.

The second half of the concert opened with a different flavor as the cheongsam-clad dancers of Chi Zhang's '09 In the Mood for Love scuttled onto stage. This traditional Chinese dance was punctuated by a sensual tango-esque duet from Lizzy Zevallos '09 and David Birr '10. In sleek black costume and liberated movement, the two opposed the stiff, strained steps of the others in a poignant commentary on tradition and progression.

Irving's which came first followed. Dappled lighting and Antony and the Johnson's sweet, tuneful "For Today I am a Boy" set the tone for a puckish, nostalgic piece in which the dancers seemed like excited, over-alert, ever-responsive children. Though the attitude may have been childlike, the dancers' wild gyrations and sweeping sequences across stage were anything but elementary, testing the bounds of spatial relationships and physical interaction with playfulness.

In Onlookers, a solo choreographed by Sharyn Korey '07, senior Erin Twohig's dancing transformed from an energetic manifestation of happiness to an expression of anger, conveyed through vigorous floorwork, impossibly high jumps and frenzied stomping. Though short and somewhat hurried, the piece managed to take the viewer on a powerful emotional ride.

Senior Rebecca Marcus' duet, The Falling, begins with dancers moving on a dark, silent stage. Language enters the scenario: "Since you've been gone, I've reinvented you in 10 different ways." This moving piece about tragedy, devotion and reinvention sends the two dancers through a series of beautiful and deliberate motions: slow, soft stretches and tilts are interrupted when the dancers grab at the sky in frantic desperation or move their mouths wildly in silent speech. The poignant choreography and thoughtful execution of movement came together to create perhaps the most captivating piece of the concert.

Dancin', the dynamic final piece of the performance, proved an appropriate finale to the night. With a video projection of the 10 dancers' live-movement as the backdrop, their lively leaps and undulations seemed to continue into infinite space, conveying the idea that dance, a vital, liberating form of expression, is everywhere.

Creative expression found in dance seems especially important at Middlebury, where the stresses of studying can become overpowering and overwhelming. "To me, dance has always been a synonym of joy and of community building," said Mendoza. "It is a way in which people can express themselves without being judged as you would in a more regular academic setting."

Though the concert was a spectacular combination of diverse inspiration, thoughtful choreography and lively movement - an arguably important release and engaging form of entertainment - only half of the 140 sold-out seats were taken by students.

"I think modern dance is underappreciated at Middlebury. A lot of people seem to be scared to attend these dance performances because they feel like they need to 'understand' a piece," said Marcus. "But modern dance is much less about how long a dancer can stand on his tippy-toes for or how fast a dancer can shake her ass; it's about appreciating the ways we can express ourselves and about becoming conscious of our own reactions to the dance, which give us further insight into who we are. It's about appreciation for self-expression - and this goes for any art form at Middlebury."