December Dance Concert Flows Like Water

December Dance Concert Flows Like Water

By Bowdoin

This year's December Dance Concert featured performances by students in six dance classes, from introductory to advanced, and included a diverse showcase of hip hop, Afro-modern, and modern styles. One dance seemed to suggest running water, and another, icy glaciers.

The performance took place Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, December 5-7, in Pickard Theater's Memorial Hall.

Students in Introduction to Modern Dance, taught by Senior Lecturer in Dance Performance Gwyneth Jones, opened the show with "9 to 5," a dance that played with the sense of drudgery and routine that can come with a regular day job. The dancers used their business attire creatively throughout.

"Within our souls, we flow like water, (Aiyibobo!)," was performed by students in Afro-Modern II: Techniques and Histories, taught by Assistant Professor of Dance Adanna "Dr J." Jones. The class used choreography, lighting, imagery, and shimmery, diaphanous textiles and costumes to create the sensation of moving water, like the sea.

Performers in Modern II: Repertory and Performance, also taught by Gwyneth Jones, danced in shiny bright red outfits for the piece, "Suite Heart," whose choreography showed off the students' versatility and skill.

The next performance, "A way forward," featured students in Making Dances in the Digital Age, taught by A. LeRoy Greason Associate Professor in the Creative Arts Aretha Aoki. They performed in front of a dystopian-looking backdrop, wearing black-and-white tops and workaday denim pants, evocative perhaps of prison garb or laborers' uniforms.

In "A glacier moves inside each of us," students in Aoki's course Advanced Modern Dance moved powerfully to the song "Triptych" by Eliane Radigue, which opened with several minutes of rushing noise, like wind over icy terrain, or maybe the ominous sounds of slow-moving ice.

The last dance of the show, "we're in this together," was performed by students in Introduction to Hip Hop, taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Lindsay Rapport. At the end of the high-energy piece, which included a short solo by each dancer, the students jumped off the stage to urge the audience to get up and move. (Rapport earlier had introduced the piece by permitting the audience to yell supportive exhortations like "¡esooo!" and "¡dale!")

For the surprise finale, all the performers came out together for a last, celebratory dance.

Photos by Michele Stapleton.