By: Anastasia Mavrakis
As October wound down to a close, one of the most riveting artistic performances within the fall 2019 season came to life. Dancevent, a production performed by Orchesis Modern Dance Company, was choreographed entirely by William & Mary dance faculty. With only a little over 24 hours worth of practice, the crew immersed the audience in a one-of-a-kind experience comprised of six individual pieces.
The concert began with “After the Four,” a piece inspired by the infamous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and choreographed by Denise Damon Wade, an associate professor of dance at the College. With dancers clad in torn and disheveled dark clothing, some sporting rebel-like armbands, the themes of war and famine became all the more real. The ominous red lighting further added to the performance, creating an undeniably post-apocalyptic environment.
The next dance, choreographed by adjunct instructor Vicki Fink, toggled with how to express the intangible feeling of loneliness through the movements of the dancers. Entitled “Placeless,” the four dancers captured the despair and solitude behind being unwillingly displaced. Dancers shined individually in the segments of the solo work they performed. Further pushing the limitations beyond conventional boundaries, at points, dancers even leaped off the stage to physically close the gap between audience members and performers.
The halfway mark in the performance was perhaps the most jarring and unique experience throughout the whole concert. Professor Leah Glenn reconstructed the piece “Lynchtown,” initially choreographed by Charles Weidman. The process was particularly interesting as
Glenn transcribed the piece through labanotation—an older style of dance notation that is read from bottom to top and details lighting, costume, and movements.
This dance reflected Weidman’s personal experience as a child when he witnessed a lynching in person. He went on to choreograph this performance which essentially portrays the actions of a lynching, with a mob-like group dancing around a dancer dressed in an entirely red costume. In the words of Weidman: “Art demands that we be part of life and merge with it. Art and life are as indivisible an entity as the artist and his audience.”
The audience was taken on an emotional rollercoaster as the dance progressed and portrayed increasingly barbaric movements. This reconstruction of “Lynchtown” undoubtedly bridged the gap between history and art.
As the concert continued, the fourth installment was a short film entitled “Not Yet.” The film began in an ambiguous fashion before the meaning revealed itself in the end. The film depicted a woman standing in the mirror with her hands shaking and then switched to three younger dancers in an abandoned building.
Through their movements, they interacted with one another’s dances. Throughout the dancing, the film cuts back and forth to the woman looking at herself in a mirror. At the end, the film displays a message explaining how there is not yet a cure for Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s, and Alzheimer’s disease.
These diseases are personal to the W&M dance department, as revealed during the choreographer’s “talk-back” after the Thursday night show. “Not Yet” expresses how
dance can bring awareness to the modern struggles within our society at this very moment.
The fifth installment of the Orchesis performance, “The Facts Between,” was another dance choreographed by Professor Leah Glenn. It was inspired by her recent trip to Cape Town, South Africa, with William & Mary students. Unlike the other performances, “The Facts Between” was accompanied by spoken word poetry before shifting to a song that Professor Glenn felt encompassed the culture and her time spent in Cape Town. The lyrics roughly translated to “thank you.”
The concert came to a close with a piece that was unlike all the rest. Entitled “Breakdown,” the dance dabbled with the concept of a jukebox performing for the final time. The songs and lighting frequently switched as the dancers, clad in dazzling silver costumes, represented the sputtering of the jukebox as it darted from one genre of music to another.
Orchesis’ Dancevent performance was a definite must-see. By the end of the night, audience members walked away from the show with a new understanding of all the possibilities that dance could be.
LABANOTATION BASICS
This is a segment of a labanotation score, similar to one that Professor Glenn worked off of to reconstruct Charles Weidman’s “Lynchtown.” The shapes indicate the direction of movement, while their striped, filled, or dotted contents describe whether the movement is performed at a high, middle, or low level. The staff is read from bottom to top.
*Note: Originally published in Dog Street Journal's November 2019 issue.
*Note: The article was republished due to website maintenance and grammatical issues. The original publication date is November 1st, 2019.
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