How do you combine a dance thesis with a government thesis? Make a political dance, of course. Jennifer Melillo ’05 did just that in the first installment of her thesis, a dance called About Face that was performed in Up, Up, and Plie! last weekend.
MB: Are you the first government/dance major at Wesleyan?
JM: I am the only one I know of… ever.
MB: Do you find that they inform each other?
JM: I find them to be extremely related. I think dance is extremely political. People think this is crazy, but it is so true. Any time there are dancing bodies on stage, people draw conclusions and relationships between them.
MB: And then that becomes political?
JM: Definitely.
MB: How does that play out in your dance?
JM: My thesis is an exploration of the black power movement and the black arts movement. I’m examining various dance companies that grew out of a black dance aesthetic in the ’60s and ’70s for the explicit purpose of establishing a cohesive sense of black history and a social identity. Recently, a lot of these dance companies have chosen to integrate their dancers, and I’m trying to determine whether the meaning of their work is lost or simply universalized as a result of this integration.
MB: Has that come up in the dance world in general?
JM: There’s a lot of societal pressure to integrate all dance companies with different skin tones, different body types, different styles of movement. This has become a problem for dance companies that have grown out of the specific purpose of creating what has become known as black dance, which has been made by black choreographers for black dancers. There are a few companies that have chosen not to integrate and they’ve been criticized for this choice.
MB: So where do you stand?
JM: It’s been really hard. It’s been really hard to examine this on such an up-close level, especially because race is always a touchy subject and it’s hard for me to draw broad conclusions about societal choices and societal pressures in a thesis exploration. Maybe next semester.
MB: How did you wind up portraying the issue in your dance?
JM: I chose four black dancers and four white dancers and my main goal in the piece Face Value was to emulate movement that has traditionally been considered black dance, a lot of which I derived from West African, and set that movement on both black and white dancers. I really wanted to see whether the movement read differently on different bodies.
MB: Did you find that it did?
JM: I had a survey that I passed out after the piece and some people didn’t see race at all, which I thought was impressive. Other people did comment on race, specifically in reference to the way the movement looked on the different dancers. But for the most part everyone was receptive to the piece and my dancers really made that possible. They were absolutely amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better cast.
MB: Who were your dancers?
JM: I would like to say a little what’s up to Maia Aitken ’05, Lia Yohannes ’05, Ada Pinkston ’05, Julia Lerman ’05, Kelly Klein ’08, Sarah Taylor ’07, Acacia Stevens ’07, and Cynthia Armand ’06. I love you guys. They were especially great because they were so tolerant of my idiosyncrasies. I basically tried to turn into their mother, force-feeding them Dunkin Donuts at obscene hours.
MB: How did you find them?
JM: Some of them I dance with in Precision, which is a dance company on campus. And the others I just got from the audition.
MB: Did the four dance majors work together?
JM: We have been close ever since freshman year when we started taking classes together. So we’ve been involved in each other’s processes, probably a little too much.
MB: So you saw the rest of them taking shape?
JM: Definitely. We have showings, which are just informal meetings, with faculty and advisors, and we show whatever we have so far, which is sometimes pretty dismal and is in general a humbling process.
MB: The pieces were so different.
JM: That’s what everyone keeps saying. It was so funny to watch them take shape because we knew from the beginning that they would be extremely different. We’ve always choreographed very differently, which I think is what made this concert so strong. It was a little hard to determine the program order. Between Laurel’s [Steinhauser ’05] kiddie pools and Nathan’s [Victoria ’05] general spectacle, we just didn’t know what to do.
MB: Can you tell me about the other ones?
JM: Lana’s [Wilson ’05] was about Christmas, which was awesome. Laurel’s almost broke numerous fire codes, but the ’92 [Theater] is still standing, so everything’s a-okay. Nathan’s was a series of some of the best male specimens Wesleyan has to offer in various stages of undress. Nathan’s girls are hot too. It was all around fun for the whole family.
MB: How has writing your thesis been so far?
JM: I’ve found it really hard to verbalize, let alone write about dance. A lot of what I do takes place in inner dialogue that’s not exactly translatable to paper. My thesis carrel’s still barren. It’s coming along slowly but surely, though. It’s for the government department too, so it’s standard thesis-length. Also, my advisors, Kim Root and Melanye Price, are phenomenal, so they’ve helped me a lot these past few hectic months.
MB: Does it also tie into your spring dance?
JM: I’ll be choreographing next semester perhaps with some of the same dancers, depending on their schedules. I’ve just started to think about what I want to do. Really, not mentally there yet. Just trying to make it to Thanksgiving. The two dances will be part of the same choreographic exploration. It will probably be a little more sparse; I’m going to try to make it a lot more about the movement, and less about lighting or costumes or music.
MB: Anything else we should know?
JM: Everyone should go to Terpsichore next weekend. Also, the Precision show in early December. It’s going to be fierce.
MB: Are you doing anything for Terp?
JM: I’m in Core, which organizes the show and is the life beat of Terpsichore. I’m choreographing a small piece and I’m also dancing in Pia Dubitsky and Rachel Cohen’s piece. It’s going to be hot.
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