Home Dance Concert

The Department of Theatre and Dance presents its 13th Annual Dance Concert, Home. 

Director of the dance program, Susie Thiel, created a new dance theatre work in collaboration with eight dance majors. The dance is presented in a series of short vignettes discussing women’s rights and issues past to present. It is told from the perspective of the cast of women students, who range from ages 18 to 22 years old. This is a population that is often not provided with an opportunity to discuss their thoughts on women’s issues in a public arena. What is unique about the dance is that the soundscape is created solely from the dancers on the stage, through instrument playing, speaking, and singing bodies. Connected to the concert title “Home,” the women performers feel that there is nothing closer to “home” than the belief that women rights ARE human rights.

Each year, the Department of Theatre and Dance brings in a guest artist to teach classes to our students and to set a dance work on the dancers. Chris and Ama Law, creators of Project Charma, set a hip-hop dance on five dance students. Building the Beat  is inspired by Chris' favorite house dancer Mamson (based in France). This celebration allows the audience to witness community building, rhythmic play and the recurrence of circle as connection. The beats heard and the dance forms seen connect humans in a way where there is no choice but to look past differences and build community along with the beat. 

The dancers worked extremely hard during a five-day residency to build the dance. Chris and Ama couldn't be prouder of the cast of five and all the ways they have supported and built each other up while pushing themselves past exhaustion to feel the purpose of our mission and the intricate connections to the music.

Glaciation, created by sophomore student choreographer Ali King, investigates the repercussions of climate change both on the environment and humanity itself. From the rapid melting rate of glaciers to the deterioration of coral reefs, the future of our planet is at great risk. King’s work implicates the audience’s active role amid this climate crisis, and asks viewers: where do we go from here? With a sculptural quality, the dancers are immersed in a unique fusion of found sound and new music scores that conjure, inhabit, and impact these fragile environments.  

In  Rince, Repeat, faculty choreographer Laura Neese merges percussive and soft shoe Irish step dance traditions, and contemporary modern dance, to explore themes of rigidity and freedom, structure, and play, embedded in the vibrant cultural traditions of Irish dance and music. Tied to the concert theme, Home, Neese excavates cultural heritage and artistic lineage. As a longtime company member of Bessie-nominated Darrah Carr Dance, Neese honors Carr’s ModERIN fusion of Irish step and modern dance by sharing the dance, or rince, forward.   

Theresa Bautista is a part-time instructor at the Department of Theatre & Dance and the recipient of the FY21 Al Smith Fellowship Award in Choreography. Her new contemporary ballet, Seeking, blurs the language of classical ballet and contemporary forms to investigate fear in the face of uncertainty, diving into the unknown, and the implications of blindly moving forward.