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‘W&L Dancers Create …’ On Stage This Weekend
Guest Artists Join Students For Concerts
The Washington and Lee Repertory Dance Company will perform in “W&L Dancers Create …” at the Lenfest Center this weekend.
Performances will take place this Thursday, Oct. 31, and Friday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 2, at 2 p.m.
Presented by the Department of Theater, Dance and Film Studies, the hour-long evening concert, under the artistic direction of professor Jenefer Davies, will be comprised of work choreographed by guest artists and students, and will explore a broad range of thematic concepts, designs, and movement styles.
“Point to Point,” choreographed and visually produced by W&L dance alum Ashley Shugart, is an experiment in tying her practice as a visual artist to her work as a choreographer. It is a step in answering the question: how can visual art inspire movement? To do this, she created a stop motion film that plays for the duration of the piece. It serves as a roadmap for the movement, staging, and overall feel of the dance.
After graduating from W&L, Shugart spent two years living abroad and teaching through the Fulbright Austria USTA program. Throughout her time as an expat, she continued to find dance and art communities to continue her artistic growth. She returns now as a guest choreographer, eager to create work that reflects her multifaceted interests, said Davies.
Veteran choreographer and aerialist Misha Lin created “Avulsion,” an aerial dance for lyra that is inspired by the way that the natural rhythms of our bodies guide our instincts and impulses, just as the course of water is spontaneous and free, said Davies. Supporting her academic study in dance, Lin was awarded competitive grants to study at the International Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, Colo., and the European Aerial Dance Festival in Brighton, England.
“Reflections and Refractions,” choreographed by Elise McPherson, is a work for 10 dancers containing a rolling mirror that serves as an 11th. Her work questions the toll the expectation of perfectionism takes on young people, and muses on a quote by one of the mothers of modern dance, Doris Humphrey: “In maturity you come to learn that perfection is not immediately attainable, but that there is still happiness, a measure of harmony to be found while working toward the goal.”
New choreographers to the stage create the balance of the program.
Mikaela Schon created “The Grip of Oizys,” which looks at pressure and its’ detrimental effects on authenticity.
“Groupthink,” by Sierra Johnson, is a powerful message on women’s empowerment.
Tanner Barlow created “Made Clean,” an exploration of guilt and mercy. And Timi Patterson joined together a love of math and dance in “Knotted,” which combines the mathematical knot theory concept of danceability of knots with themes of the relationship between rigid mathematical thinking and fluid human intuition, and battling with professionalism and societal pressures. On curating this performance, Davies said, “One of the outcomes of the dance performance is to give the students a practiceas- research experience in the arts. In doing so, we provide them with the tools necessary to express themselves through their art form across disciplines. One of the beautiful results of such a collaboration is the advancement of faculty-led and peer-topeer teaching, which empowers students to embrace experiential learning and explore their world together.”
