The Winter Dance Concert took place this weekend and featured six pieces with varying styles.
Audience members filling the bottom of Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium for the Winter Dance concert Friday gathered their thoughts as dancers expressed their emotions through different styles and movements.
The concert took place twice over the weekend, with performances on Saturday and Friday. The event showcased six pieces of varying emotions and tones with meanings ultimately left up to the audience’s interpretation.
“What you bring to it is what you bring to it,” Madeline Scott, the director of the School of Dance, Film and Theater, said to the audience. “We encourage you to allow yourself free reign in terms of ‘What do I think this really feels like and what does it seem like to me?’ ”
The night began with the premier of Face to Face, a piece featuring eight dancers dressed in shades of grey. The idea of the piece focused on dancers exploring responses to various forms of confrontation.
The final piece of the first half of the show, Esum, was an African contemporary piece interpreted power and its place in society.
Esum included a large group of dancers where all but two were dressed the same. The two standing out, a male and female, depicted the power in society. The female was ostracized from the group of girls on stage and at one point was even thrown out of the center of the group during the dance.
The second half of the show began with the premier of Each Other’s Angels. Mia Wilson, a freshman studying computer engineering said that the piece included music from the movie Pride and Prejudice. For her, the piece had a “sense of reverence” and allowed her a connection to the movie.
“I really liked the emotion of Each Other’s Angels and the choreography too,” said Kathryn McGaughey, a first year grad student in costume design in the theater division and the costume designer of the pieces Rise and Esum. “It was just really pretty. … It was a little more lyrical than some of the pieces.”
The following piece entitled Imprint focused on the energy exchanges found in daily life.
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“I enjoyed the intensity of Imprint,” said Franny Gallagher, a senior studying lighting and sound design in the School of Theater. “I don’t really know what the full content was but it was very clear that the ending was an emotional situation that had continuous percussions that echoed within her.”
The final piece of the night, Mod-estly Psychedelic, brought ideals of freedom and sexuality from the ’60s to the stage of MemAud.
Being able represent mod culture at a specific time and place was a freeing experience, said Matthew Keller, a sophomore studying dance and a performer in the show.
“(It has a) sense of exploration and being free to do whatever and not having to be held back by societies confines,” Keller said. “I think that’s what it brings for me.”
All the hard work came together for the show, said Rachel Wells, a sophomore dance major in the Division of Dance and a dancer in Mod-estly Psychedelic. She said she was able to let go of the stress, give it her all and have fun with the dance.
“It was fun. It’s happy. It’s upbeat. It’s exciting and energetic,” she added. “It’s definitely a memorable piece and I definitely will always remember it.”
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