The nine senior dance majors this year will present their capstone projects in Kelsey Theater from Thursday, Dec. 7 to Saturday, Dec. 9, at 7:30 p.m. each night. This year’s senior dance concert is titled, “a deviation from the perpendicular,” and will explore a wide variety of topics, moods and themes. Seven of the nine dances will be choreographed group pieces, one will be a solo performance and one will be a screendance. The senior dance majors are as follows: Junior Avalos ’18, Briana Blakely ’18, Christy Dobbratz ’18, Sabrina Easley ’18, Emily Emerson ’18, Harper Foote ’18, Sonja Lund ’18, Emma Mogard ’18 and Don Williams ’18.
Avalos’ piece is titled “Cold Feet” and follows the relationship of two individuals as they navigate the emotional roadblocks of trauma and coming out.
Blakely’s choreographed works takes inspiration from the care practices of both humans and animals. It examines the way these practices can be both restorative and, at other times, oppressive.
Dobbratz’s piece, “I am Two, We are One,” features not only a duet of dancers, but also a quartet of musicians playing original music composed by Elijah Baumgartner ’18. The dance examines how duality of the self can influence the manner we relate to those closest to us.
Easley’s screendance will combine film, choreography and minimalistic sound to capture the essence of themes that originated from the concept of birds in flight. Other ideas explored in the piece include repetition and the passage of time.
Emerson’s choreography, a three-dancer piece titled “Still Moving In Time,” grapples with the emotional processes of remembering, forgetting and coming to terms with difficult memories.
Foote’s dance – which found its impetus in earthy imagery compost and bugs, music and the “Authentic Movement” technique – will feature four dancers’ exploration of the concept of decay in the context of humans’ relationship to the earth.
Lund’s work is for the most part inspired by daily gestures, but will also concurrently add in “unexpected elements.” The idea of the piece is to play with postmodern ideas and question the meaning of spectating a dance performance.
A dance choreographed by Mogard will feature an ensemble of seven dancers who, in the work, try to understand the notion of non-circumstantially based happiness and joy.
Williams will perform in a solo piece choreographed for him by Marciano Silva dos Santos, the founder of Contempo Physical Dance Company. He seeks to use the dance to explore the style in which he and others opt to hide or reveal parts of themselves in the wake of society’s influence.
The run “a deviation from the perpendicular” will be free and open to the public, and includes an intermission.
