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Artistic Residencies Showcased In W&L Shows
Repertory Dance Company Performing
The Washington and Lee University Department of Theatre, Dance and Film Studies will present the award-winning W&L Repertory Dance Company, March 14-15 at 7:30 p.m. and March 16 at 2 p.m. in a program of multifaceted dance works created by nationally renowned choreographers.
This fully produced concert of six works contains the fruit of four artistic residencies that occurred throughout the current school year. Choreographers Jennifer Salter, Vivian Kim, Sandra Meythaler and Sarah Foster-Sproull each offered master classes for the community and held intensive choreographic rehearsals with W&L dance students.
Foster-Sproull is a senior lecturer in dance studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and holds doctorate in creative practice. She was also appointed choreographer in residence at the Royal Ballet of New Zealand in 2020 and has previously worked with the Centre for Ballet and the Arts at New York University and the New York Choreographic Institute, affiliated with the New York City Ballet.
Foster-Sproull’s residency on campus was spent working with 20 students in the W&L Repertory Dance Company, teaching them an intricate work filled with optical illusions titled “Forgotten Things.” She served as the Pemberton Visiting Scholar in Theatre, Dance and Film Studies at Washington and Lee and her residency was made possible through a contribution from W&L’s Center for International Education. -Salter, dance professor at San Jacinto College, earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in dance from Sam Houston State University, where she studied and performed with professional dance companies.
Her artistic endeavors have led her to create dance films, several of which have been presented at national film festivals and art exhibits around Houston. She was featured in the “Inspiring Stories” series in Voyage Houston Magazine.
Salter’s work “Slow Vacancy” is a raw interpretation of how dementia causes the brain to deteriorate. Crafted from personal experience watching her grandfather succumb to this illness, the work is intended to transport the audience into the mind of a patient whose brain cells are slowly dying. The piece features an original recording written and performed by Salter. -Meythaler was a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Ecuador and has performed ballet and contemporary dance in Peru, Belgium, Germany, Italy, England, France, Spain, Brazil, Columbia and Japan. She is the director of Roanoke Ballet Theatre and is an adjunct professor of ballet at W&L. She created a solo for senior Charlotte Peete that expresses the rhythms and movement of the sea and the peacefulness its proximity creates. -An encore performance from the fall concert, “Sit. Stay. Down,” is an excerpted work by Kim who is a choreographer, performer, and dance educator who received her MFA in performance and choreography from the University of Colorado Boulder with an emphasis in Alexander Technique. Her dance was created in response to personal experiences and Kim’s research into the philosophies and lexicon of Confucian Analects for Women — ancient teachings that have persisted as a basis for East Asian/ Asian-American women’s lifestyle, behavior and self-worth. Born into a traditional South Korean family, but raised in the United States, Kim, through this piece, explores her personal experience of reconciling Eastern and Western lifestyles and life-expectations. -Jenefer Davies, W&L Repertory Dance Company artistic director and head of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Film, said, “Bringing guest artists to campus gives the students the opportunity to experience a professional dance environment, learn innovative, new works and different teaching methodologies, and practice embodied learning.”
The evening also includes the expansion of an earlier work, “Wallflowers/Wildflowers,” by Davies, who was named Researcher of the Year by the National Dance Education Organization for her work contextualizing a curriculum and creating pedagogical paths for aerial dance in higher education. Davies’ book “Writing the Body: The Art of Dance Composition” was recently published by Routledge Press.
Her new choreographic work explores marginalization and gender inequality through satire and shines a light on the hidden work of being a woman.
There is one student work is in the show. Senior Angela Tu, a dance minor, explored the blending of contemporary ballet and aerial sling to create an investigation of contrasts of shape, style, and rhythm.
The W&L Repertory Dance Company Concert will be held in the Lenfest Center for the Arts. Tickets can be purchased at (540) 458-8000 or online at https://www.wlu. edu/lenfest-center.
