Faculty Dance Concert: Where words fail, movement speaks

The UW Dance Program will open its performance season tonight with the Faculty Dance Concert, an annual event featuring choreography by nationally recognized dance faculty, guest artists, community members and undergraduates involved with the dance program.

The faculty concert, one of four productions put on by the Dance Program each year, is one of the hallmarks of the program and has been since its inception. The performance is notable for the way it lends faculty and guest artists creative freedom, said Betsy Cooper, director of the Dance program. The choreography is done by the faculty, but performers — including some dance majors or minors — carve out their own interpretations of the movements.

"This year we have five dances choreographed by a different faculty member," Cooper said. "We also have a guest artist, Jim Hansen, from New York who has choreographed a piece that the dancers have been working on here."

Hansen is an assistant professor at the State University of New York — Brockport who came to Seattle for a week in October to teach choreography to a small group of dancers. During an informal spacing rehearsal of his Fissures, dancers sliced their arms to aggressive and unpredictable music, still managing somehow to look precise and in unison.

Being involved in such a performance takes extra time on the students' parts. Sometimes it means trudging through the rain at night to a cold stage in order to rehearse. The saying "practice makes perfect" is familiar to dancers. It's a common mantra to them and to faculty members whose job it is to fuse the processes together.

The preparations have been going on for months. Choreographers held auditions and chose dancers to perform their creations, Cooper said. Since that time, dancers have been putting in two to four hours per week in rehersals in preparation for tonight's opening.

"The challenge is trying to perform it right while relating the piece to other people," said senior Rachel Randall, a dance major who will be performing in the show.

"In my perspective, the concert gives students a chance to work with faculty to experience the process in creating a piece together. Also, it gives dancers a company type of setting," explained visiting lecturer Fritha Pengally.

Faculty members have different approaches to their own processes. Pengally said her work tends to evolve as she creates it. She's hoping that the underlying theme of her piece will permeate onstage and with the audience.

"My work tends to be subtle," she said. "I've been thinking a lot about the world, which has a lot of violence. So I'm trying to create a world of softness and connection."

Other choreographers followed a different path. Artist-in-residence Mark Haim has chosen to restage a piece called Parade, which he created after seeing a woman at a bus stop in the rain.

Visiting lecturer Dominque Gabella and Cooper have choreographed a piece inspired by Gabella's mother, who was also a dancer. Gabella recalled the dance she saw as an 8-year-old and reached back in time to recreate it. 

Lecturer Jurg Koch took a completely different route, casting community members in his piece, which is called Reverb. Instead of holding auditions and reqiring dance experience from his performers, Koch put out flyers advertising an opportunity to perform, and people from the community responded.

"Unlike the other choreographers, I work with dancers of all different levels," Koch added. "It tends to be inter-generational."

Instead of dance majors or minors, most of the women featured in Reverb are in their 40s or 50s. The dance centers around space floor plans and domains. As Kock sees it, people have their areas and own space, which causes a rift in interaction. Unlike dance majors,they don't necessarily have performance experience, which alters their performance dynamic. Like other choreographers, Kocht labored to get them to interpret movements, but said he felt his endeavor has been successful.

"The beauty of it comes with movement," he said. "The dancers give it integrity and make it their own. It's simply beautiful."

Reach Intermission reporter Genea Paras at arts@thedaily.washington.edu