After two years of hard work, the experiences of this year’s cohort of candidates for the MFA in Choreography and Performance culminated in a thesis concert presented Thursday, Feb. 7, Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9, in Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts. Centered around the theme of “We,” each candidate’s piece examined the concept in a myriad of unique and captivating ways.
Nikki Lee ’19 was the first candidate to present her piece, “light | time | space | dust.” Lee, interested in the “intersections of improvisation and multimedia performance,” as described in the event program, had the performers improvise the movement in the piece. Performers were both on stage and amongst the audience, and throughout the program, the dancers would take candid pictures of each other, which would appear on constructed orbs hanging from the ceiling almost immediately after they were taken. As performers came together and separated, and as some left the stage entirely, it begged an interesting question about the consequences of group dynamics and who and what we consider “We.”
While Lee’s was an ensemble piece, Lucille Jun ’19 and Reem Ibrahim ’20 were the only performers in Jun’s work, “solidus.” Still, multiple different types of “We” were created and explored as the performers’ relationships with each other and the audience developed throughout the piece. At one point, the pair sat at the front of the stage and faced the audience, breathing, nodding and making hand gestures that evoked considerable laughter. “We” became a state shared not just by the performers but with the audience as well, with deeper emotional resonations throughout the entire piece.
Next was candidate Michelle Kassmann Erard’s piece, “Mixed Matter,” which displayed a distinctly less positive version of group existence but made a pretty convincing argument for the necessity of “We” at the same time. While the audience at first follows the journey of a girl who joins a new group of people, she is eventually absorbed into a frantic existence where she is but one among a frenzied swarm of dancers. Disjointed, disconnected movements and an almost dystopian atmosphere — complete with a multimedia projection and a fake-happy robotic voice that advised both the dancers and the audience to “remain calm” — finished off the atmosphere of disillusion and angst. Audience member and dancer alike were deprived of the comfort of human connection, but soon became all the more aware of its importance in Anna M. Maynard’s “Good grief.”
The final performance of the concert, “Good grief” reinforced the profound healing that human connection can provide. Performers told individual and dual stories while an ensemble of dancers seemed to bear witness as a community. In a heart-wrenching moment, one of the performers in the very heart of the ensemble turned to face the audience, fell to her knees and began to sob. All of the performers gathered around her protected her as she cried, seeming to allow for the “good” kind of grief the title of the piece suggests.
Lee, Jun, Erard and Maynard’s pieces each provided a different way of looking at the concept of “We.” Still, no matter the perspective, the cheers from Saturday’s audience proved that “We” was a mutual experience of engagement and deeply felt emotion.
Check out other upcoming Smith dance events including “Home Away: Training Beyond Academia,” a panel discussion occurring March 21, and the Senior Dance Concert featuring works by Noli Rosen ’19, Sofia Engelman ’19 and Hanna Bredvik ’19, running from April 11 to 13.
