Carpenter Center program provides a stage for students, professional dancers to learn from each other

After some breathing exercises, supine stretches and crawling on a wooden floor, 18 Cal State Long Beach theater students climbed on top of tables, maneuvered through a tilted whiteboard and pretended to paddle on a table to shore.

They practiced trust falling into each other's arms and jumped off imaginary heights. As music played on speakers above, groups of four or five students danced, huddled, rolled and attempted to tell a story through movement, without using words.

The students were guided by two professional dancers from A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, a nationally acclaimed dance troupe that recently performed at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center. The dancers - Donovan Reed and Jamaal Bowman - stopped by the theatre arts students' class one morning last week to share their insights and demonstrate their moves during an artists' workshop on movement for non-dancers.

"I have not done something like that before," said Dean Castro, a third-year transfer student in theater arts. "It was just very much experimental. But at the same time, it was really fun, and I felt like I learned a bit more about how my body moves, and how everybody else's body moves."

Kira Macdonald, a third-year theater arts student, said most of her theater classes so far have focused on voice and text. "Most of our classes don't actually focus on how you move. So, it was entertaining and also different, because everything has dialogue.

"These guys are legit," she added. "They know what they're doing."

The workshop was part of the Carpenter Center's Campus Connections program, one of three components of the center's "Arts for Life" arts education and outreach project. While Campus Connections workshops began in 2000-01, Arts for Life officially started in 2013, and since then has touched hundreds of CSULB students and faculty, as well as thousands of area school children and Long Beach community members with workshops and free or low-cost performances.

"What makes the Campus Connections program invaluable are the cross-disciplinary exchanges, like A.I.M dancers Reed and Bowman working with … (theater) students to expand their movement vocabularies," said Megan Kline Crockett, executive director of the Carpenter Center. "Through Campus Connections, students learn from visiting instructors and envision pathways for their own future artistic endeavors and careers."

Dance and theater assistant professor Tsiambwom Akuchu, the instructor for Theatre 262: Beginning Movement for the Actor, said the A.I.M dancers helped his students realize the importance of a sense of presence on stage.

"Dancers have an incredible ability to be present on stage and in life," Akuchu said. "Part of that is the skill of being in their bodies. So, for actors, that ability is powerfully important, especially when your craft is representing life.

"Kyle Abraham is one of the most well-known modern dance companies in this country, so having the opportunities for the dancers in the company to lend their expertise I think is invaluable."

Bowman has been with the troupe since 2022. "They were very open to our ideas, and very energetic," he said of the theater students. "They take those risks that maybe non-theater, average people wouldn't take. They have that ability to be vulnerable and to share. They were very generous."

A different connection

Later that afternoon, two different dancers from A.I.M led a workshop for MFA dance students in the Dance Department studios. They were teaching movements from a "rep," or repertoire of the company, one that was performed at the Carpenter Center over the weekend.

Mykiah Goree helped warm up the six students, while Olivia Wang demonstrated and guided them through several elaborate, expressive moves.

"It's awesome; it's really fun to learn rep," said Maggie Ogle, a grad student who teaches Dance 101: Introduction to Modern Dance at The Beach. "One of the mini modules shows Kyle Abraham's work, because he's well known for blending different styles together. So, it's cool to embody that … I haven't ever tried to dance this style before. So, it's been very interesting to put it in my body and experience what that's like."

Student Tamsin Carlson said, "It's kind of a window into how the choreographer works, because we get to embody through them teaching us the work what it actually feels like from the inside, rather than seeing it from the audience's perspective."

The students came from varying dance backgrounds, including hip-hop, krump, street, ballet and traditional Indian dance.

"Part of what we're doing in this class is really trying to give them different pathways into creative processes, based on their own forms," said Rebecca Lemme, associate professor of dance. "So, we're not trying to get them to do all the same thing. We're really trying to help enhance what their voice is and figure out how to use the form to express different things choreographically."

For Wang, who graduated from SUNY Purchase in 2023 and has been with A.I.M since January, teaching the movements was a learning experience as well.

"I think teaching is so important and so fun," she said. "It's something that used to intimidate me a lot. But I love just getting to know everybody and seeing everybody's different backgrounds and styles. Teaching shows that the movement itself isn't always the forefront.

"Getting to see everyone in the space, playing to everyone's strengths is also a teachable moment for me as well."

"It's the 'catch what you can' approach," added Goree, a 2024 Juilliard graduate. "I think we're all learning in this space together as a collective."

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