On April 18, 19 and 20, Connecticut College’s senior Dance Department majors showcased their final theses performances in a concert titled 10 Different Things. Featuring eight original performances from seniors Liz Charky, Ayano Elson, Grant Jacoby, Jeramie Orton, Rachel Pritzlaff, Sammi Shay, Chloe Spitalny and Skyler Volpe and two solo pieces choreographed for seniors Amy Gernux and Candace Taylor by artists Angie Hauser (Bebe Miller Company) and Wendell Cooper (Complex Stability), the performance was divided into two programs: A and B. The show culminated with a piece choreographed by Nicholas Leichter ’94. While each piece reflected the different styles and talents of each choreographer, all ten majors displayed an obvious passion for dance. “The choreographies and performances were diverse in approach and content, thoroughly engaging, and representative of each student’s growth as an artist in the last four years,” said Dance Professor Lisa Race.
Program A
Skyler Volpe’s piece, “Cuss,” began before the show even started; her dancers were onstage warming up as the audience trickled in to fill the seats. Her choreography began very lightly with mellow music before shifting to more upbeat music with sharper and heavier movements. In the next segment, the dancing was satisfyingly in sync with the music; every motion matched the sound it accompanied. It ended with the dancers at the edge of the stage, staring ruthlessly at the audience to the point where I felt I had done something wrong. Instead of bowing, they did a sassy “whatever” gesture, and strutted off the stage.
In “To the Place Where One Lives,” choreographed by Liz Charky, the unnatural movements and eclectic music made the piece feel like a dream gone awry. The stage was often divided, so that certain dancers were only on one side of the stage. Charky said, “I tried to create movement that had to do with feelings of displacement.” She had been researching Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, and looked at other instances when people are displaced, such as war. She said, “What is home? Is your body home? What does it mean to not feel like your body is your home or your actual material dwelling is not your home? What would that feel like and what would that look like?”
Chloe Spitalny’s choreography began with one of her dancers standing on another dancer’s shoulders, shouting, “Mom” into the audience. This created the setting for “% Daily Value,” a piece that for me was about a mother-daughter relationship with an emphasis on vitamins. One segment was violent, as Aimee Taterka ’14 began slapping Jillian Wiseman ’14 in the face. The audience tittered uncomfortably as the slaps became progressively harder. This continued until Wiseman suddenly gave a blood-curdling scream. The piece also interacted with the audience, as two of the dancers asked audience members, “Do you want to see a dance my mom does?” The dancers took on the roles of mother and daughter, annoying and loving each other, pushing away and pulling close.
“Ooooh” sighed the audience, as the curtain rose to reveal candles hanging in glass jars above the stage. Thus began Jeramie Orton’s “Of Huginn & Muninn.” Her piece did not have any music; instead, there was a voice-over of different people talking about random topics: my best prank, my father’s favorite joke, my best fort, my mother’s hands. The voices, often overlapping, shared memories of life. The dancers mirrored the stories: they weren’t all doing the same thing, yet there was a common thread. There was something bittersweet about Orton’s piece — somber yet lighthearted. I wasn’t sure whether to cry or smile.
“White Center” was choreographed by Angie Hauser and performed by Amy Gernux, who wore all blue as she danced to the sounds of water. It sounded like being on a boat, which made me a little seasick. The watery noises were then replaced with pretty music that had a lot of movement. Gernux’s dancing was powerful yet graceful; at the end of it I could hear the audience members murmuring in awe.
Program B
Rachel Pritzlaff opened the show with her piece entitled, “That’s the Space.” The piece began with figures dressed in all black running, jumping and leaping across the stage. The majority of the piece consisted of the dancers crossing the stage, so that we got short glimpses of segments of choreography. The movements were very acrobatic, sharp and modern. This worked well with the music, which was harsh and at times almost painful. The dancers faces were very straight, and it looked as though there was an outside force controlling their movements.
Wendell Cooper, a guest artist, worked with Candace Taylor on a piece she performed. Cooper used a combination of dance and technology to create a multi-faceted performance. It began with Taylor walking across the stage, alternating seamlessly between singing and speaking, while images were projected behind her. If I had to guess, I would say she was describing a dream. “I’m falling,” she said, as she put down her microphone and began to dance. She made shapes with her body while the screen buzzed behind her. Overall the piece felt very dreamlike and otherworldly.
Sammi Shay’s “For a State of Eternity” was a combination of beautiful and awkward. Shay sums up the concept as “the innocence in ideas about care.” She explained that the idea came from “me experiencing things with family and friends and sometimes feeling very helpless and naïve, when I feel like I can’t really help.” She used Band-Aids as a prop in the piece, because “that idea of putting a Band-Aid on the world is a… beautifully childish thing.” At one point in the piece Maia Draper-Reich ’16 leapt off the stage and into Grant Jacoby and Ayano Elson’s arms. This action was repeated several times until Jacoby and Elson left their post. Without someone there to catch her, Draper-Reich fell across the stage. It was like watching a child trying to find her own way in life, constantly falling down and trying to get up again. It was comedic in a tragic way.
Grant Jacoby’s piece, entitled “…but you can call her Judy,” was inspired, of course, by Judy Garland. It began with all the dancers standing on stage, grinning widely and bowing. At a further point there was a struggle between the dancers, and all of them were suppressing Alex Michaud ’15, who was left lying motionless on the stage. Jacoby described the different aspects of his piece: “In this section I’m trying to portray the joy and the graciousness of Judy Garland’s performance but in this section it’s more about her longing for a better life and her drug addiction.”As a double major in dance and theater, Jacoby explained, “I can really relate to the theatrics and the heart and emotion of a piece.”
“Hubba Hubba,” choreographed by Ayano Elson, was absolutely insane in the best sense of the word. The audience giggled as people got thrown around and even off the stage. Elson had each of her dancers take on a character, and as they stood in a line across the stage for an uncomfortably long amount of time, it made me think of /A Chorus Line/. Elson described her piece as “very much about sexuality, independence, voyeurism and in some moments, how a person’s sexuality kind of forces a personality and forces them to have a stronger personality that I kind of admire.” A powerful moment of the piece occurred when Volpe repeatedly screamed, “Don’t look at me!” at a group of dancers. I related to the piece, and this particular moment, mostly when Elson pointed out “the idea, at least for me, of wanting to be noticed, but also kind of embarrassed of your own existence at the same time.”
Both programs A and B ended with a piece choreographed by Nicholas Leichter ’94. The title, “#lovesexdancesalsoul,” was very fitting for this upbeat, sensual number. The movements were sharp, aggressive and seductive. The dancers were very committed to the movements, and looked like they were having fun. I was most impressed by the shifting formations, maintaining a constant flow of activity onstage without creating confusion. Glitzy yet raw, this dance was fierce.
The show ended with a quirky video commemorating the senior dancers’ experiences, created by Charky, who is also a film major. After the video, the seniors came onto the stage for their bows — each of them dressed according to and did a short dance representing their starkly unique and charming personalities.
Race said, “I was delighted and so proud to see how far each and every dance had progressed from the showings I’d seen earlier in the semester. This class has always had a strong sense of camaraderie and collective creative energy from the time they were freshmen, when they’d gather around Richard Schenk’s piano to sing at the end of a movement class.” Though she’ll miss this class, Race looks forward to getting “to see what journey the next class will take us on.”
