Posted on March 22, 2006
Fouette. Pirouette. Ronde de jambe.
All of these dance moves will be brought to life on stage this weekend as the Contemporary Dance Ensemble presents its final spring performance.
This year’s show features the work of a guest choreographer, several faculty members, and four students in the dance program.
The show will open with dance faculty member Roxann Morgan’s piece “Affixed Exchanges,” a combination of dialogue and movement that takes a looksat the subway system through the eyes of the passengers.
Guest choreographer Donald Laney will also be showcasing his piece, “InSIDEout.” The dancers featured in the show auditioned for the roles and spent a week in January learning the piece. This residency took up to 10 hours each day of rehearsal.
The schools of dance and music have come together with composer John Hilliard’s “Mozaics on Mozart.” Inspired by Hilliard’s work on a fragment composed by Mozart himself, the piece will be accompanied by the dance styling of faculty member Shane O’Hara and artistic director Cynthia Thompson.
At the heart of the Contemporary Dance Ensemble performance are the student works. The pieces were selected last December, and the student choreographers have been reworking their pieces with the help of professional costume designers and lighting technicians since January.
“It’s wonderful to be able to rework a piece for several performances so that the performers become more confident in performance and with the movement,” said senior dancer and choreographer Meghan Amoroso.
Her piece, entitled “Spinner’s Snare,” is one of four student works to be featured in the concert. According to Amoroso, her piece “examines the relationship between [the Greek goddesses known as the Fates] and an unsuspecting human.”
Fifth-year dance major Jess Burgess enjoyed working with the guest artists and faculty while at the same time perfecting her own choreography on her piece, “Cedes,” with professional lighting and costume designers.
“I think my favorite thing about the Contemporary concert is the duality in the nature of the show,” Burgess said. According to Burgess, “Cedes” can be summed up by a line from a W.B. Yeats poem: “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”
Sara Hoke’s piece, “Walking with Ghosts,” was inspired by imagery.
“I try to convey an atmosphere or a mood through my work while staying true to physical movement, taking the audience out of the stage space and into a new world,” Hoke said. “The movement, music and costume design reflect feelings of loss, the supernatural and cold contentment.”
The fourth and final student piece is “[Two Link]” by Dawn Young.
“It was inspired by the images of a chain linked fence and monkey bars — how supportive these structures are and how that correlates to relationships,” Young said about the choreography.
In interpreting the pieces, Young emphasizes that “there is no definite story line or true theme the audience must stick to, simply to enjoy the physicality of the movement.”
The Contemporary Dance Ensemble will take place Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. in Latimer-Shaeffer Theatre. Tickets are $8.
