Bugs. Narrative poetry. Jocks. Last weekend’s “Lunge” at the ’92 Theater showcased these ideas and more through dance with the senior thesis projects of Mara Gross, Vanessa Guida and Aki Sasamoto.
Sasamoto’s piece, “web,” incorporated two dancers who expressed themselves through dressing and moving like insects. Sasamoto said the piece developed through her work in a sculpture class and musical experimentation with Dan St. Clair ’04 at Klekolo’s that explored the idea of “internal violence.”
She added that her main inspiration sprang from personal experience. “Mainly, I was thinking about the insects I killed when I was a child,” Sasamoto explained.
Sasamoto said she hoped her dance demonstrated parallels between apparently trivial hardships in nature and human trauma.
The music for the dance consisted of the amplified sound of dripping and cracking sheets of ice that were arranged on the stage and melted in the course of the dancing.
Although the music and movement were not strictly controlled, according to Sasamoto, “The unpredictable nature of the sound installation with ice melting is a part of the music.”
She said that both the choreography and the music were intended to have an “organic flow.”
Describing his effort in the piece as “a huge responsibility,” Sasamoto’s dancer Takahiro Haneda ’06 said of the work, “I was almost addicted to the piece and in the end became very nostalgic for it, although it was extremely challenging and sometimes painful to be so emotional.”
Stage manager Laurel Steinhauser ’05 admired the nuanced movements of Sasamoto’s dance. I liked how the detailed movement called attention to every detail, down to the smallest twitches of a pinkie finger,“ she said.
Several audience members expressed a desire to know more about the piece. ”I’m still processing it all,“ said Drew Neidorf. ”It might take a while.“
The evening’s second piece, Vanessa Guida’s ”Every Body Tells a Story,“ is part of her joint thesis in English and dance on the role of the presence of an author or storyteller in narrative autobiography.
”I want to explore the constructs the author’s body necessarily places on the reading of their text and what happens when they chose to tell their story through the medium of another body, in the form of a pseudonym or, in the case of choreography, dancers,“ Guida explained.
The piece itself originates from Guida’s own life. ”I was actually having an MRI,“ she said. ”I had my eyes shut really tight and I wasn’t allowed to move for 45 minutes and I was listening to all of these beeps and groans and sounds that the machine was making. And all I could think of was dancing.“
She emphasizes, however, that the dance was not about her personal experience but about the process of conveying experience. To do so, Guida initially recites an autobiographical poem and then places herself as a watchful presence onstage as five dancers alternately move individually, in groups and as units.
”[The process was one of] visually depicting the way words evoke a multiplicity of feelings for different people,“ said dancer Michael Andolina ’05.
”Writing explains the experience and dancing shows the experience,“ Andolina said. ”We worked with visually depicting other people’s words about their experiences.“
The music of Guida’s piece, created by Dave Ruder ’05, was also integral to the performance. ”The process for the sound was thematically parallel to the process for the dance,“ Guida says. ”Dave really was the invisible seventh dancer onstage.“
The music, which employed distorted electronic mixes of Guida reciting comments that had been made about her body, was added to the dance in its final stages. Ruder and Guida agree that it adds another dimension to the piece as an exploration of invocations of autobiography.
”Part of the nature of the piece is that it shaped the music and was shaped by it,“ Ruder said. ”It worked in slightly different ways each time. The music got redefined every night.“ ”I wanted to convey the process, the experience of the sense of freedom and the sense of loss one experiences in giving or thrusting a story onto others.“
The process of the piece was vital, according to dancer Carly Neidorf ’05. ”It’s a pretty incredible exchange of ideas,“ Neidorf said. ”The process of modern dance—that’s why I do this.“
”The process of it was great,“ agreed Ruder. ”As a process and as a product, it was satisfying.“ Audience member Alex Moore ’05 was similarly impressed. ”I was interested by the biographical aspect of it and how she alluded to her situation without overstating it,“ she said.
The third of the senior thesis dances was Mara Gross’ ”Integration,“ a piece that examined the connections between dance and physical education in the university setting.
”Ultimately, I am looking for a place where dance and athletics can and do overlap and how the curriculums might overlap more in higher education,“ Gross said.
The piece was an exploration in integrating the two mediums.
”I tried to combine traditional ‘sports/practice’ activities with those of ‘dance/rehearsal’ methods,“ said Gross.
Her dance invoked counting and rhythm exercises associated with dance juxtaposed with whistles and competitive movements normally associated with athletics.
”Being a dance major and a student athlete is where the inspiration for this piece, and my thesis, came from,“ said Gross. She added that another commonality that dancers and athletes share is the struggle for legitimacy.
”Not every jock is dumb, and not every dancer has it easy in school,“ she said. Ultimately, the three dances demonstrated the versatility of dance as an art form.
”The real strength of this show is how different the styles of the choreographers were,“ said Steinhauser, who is also a dance major.
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