The Spring Faculty Dance Concert on April 20th and 21st featured the original works and unique performances by a diverse group of faculty members and some of their students.
The first piece, “Greener Grasses,” directed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Kim Root, focused on the use of sound emanated from humans and moving objects and featured innovative techniques that incorporated a few props. With the aim of exploring relationships through modern dance, the two performers stayed on their own side of a fence in the middle of the stage and used sudden, spastic movements while making animal-like noises.
The second piece, “Accumulating Venus,” performed by Artist-in-Residence Patricia Beaman, featured the sounds of water and the ocean, a wardrobe of all pink costumes, and an extravagant white wig and simple white mask.
Anna Roberts-Gevalt ’09, who works in the costume shop, helped to make the costumes created by designer Leslie Weinberg and realized by costume shop manager Christian Milik.
“[The piece] was inspired by images of vaginas and the ocean…the dress’s skirt at times suggested a sea anemone, at others suggested labia lips,” Roberts-Gevalt said. “The piece was very much about the ways in which costume is transformative and acts as a mask, because she put on the multilayered dress during the course of the dance, all the while wearing a mask over her face.”
The multiple stories and messages contained within Associate Professor of Dance Pedro Alejandro’s piece, “Ex-Agora,” performed by students in the Repertory & Performance course, came together beautifully. To incorporate the dance’s themes into their own lives, students were instructed to collect recycled cups from Pi Café to incorporate into the dance.
“The process started with us doing a combination of theoretical readings to arrive at a common understanding of performance as somatic (spiritual),” Alejandro said. “The main concern/common ground that we all wanted to affirm was our preoccupation with the earth. The class had to train the mind, body, and spirit and, while doing that, we were making a dance. We were bringing formal, political, cultural, and spiritual ideas together.”
“We had to practice what we believe,” Alejandro continued. “How do we get ourselves out of the marketplace-machine efficiency-military preparedness—our preoccupation with words, paper, technology? We wanted to find as many uses for things that we would normally discard: every object and gesture could have many different meanings. We’re too quick to throw away.”
In the premiere of Artist-in-Residence Hari Krishnan’s piece, “Tension Red,” the sounds of whispered words and tonal humming filled the room while Krishnan and guitarist Daniel Phoenix Singh lay in boxes of light and suddenly sprung forward. Both used modernized Bharata Natyam movements, taken out of traditional context, on a lit tessellated floor. Highlighted with bright red lighting against a black background, the two paralleled the movements of one another, their bodies occasionally touching. The piece ended much as it had begun with the two performers returning to the boxes of light and settling down next to each other.
Live music accompanied Artist-in-Residence Darla Stanley’s piece, “Next Door.” Stanley’s work utilized piano strings, visible on the side of the stage—their sound as fascinating as their movements. The eccentric characters seen in the dance embodied a sense of restlessness, constrained by the light that surrounded them. The performers continually marked or felt the edges of their bodies and the objects on stage, which included a birdcage, a stool, and a desk.
The last piece, “Spirit of the Orixa,” by Visiting Instructor in Dance Ronald Burton, was dedicated to Helen “Grandma” Mensah, who has taught African dance at Wesleyan for fifteen years and will soon leave the University. After an initial sort of chorus consisting of performers clad all in white and ringing bells, the dancers greeted each other. “Grandma,” a representation of Mensah, then entered the stage, touching each of the dancers. Three performers, dressed all in white, simultaneously performed beautiful solo pieces. When “Grandma” returned, to a huge round of applause, she concluded the performance with an astounding dance solo.
“You can never say enough about Grandma, whom the program was dedicated to, with all the effort she has put in and the immense impact on the students,” said Aaron Freedman ’10. “She is really an awesome person and we will be sorry to see her go.”
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