VCU Dance NOW 2018 - Program A

VCU Dance is pleased to present VCU Dance NOW, a concert of new work by guest artists, faculty, and students, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 8, 9, and 10 at 8:00 pm and Saturday, February 10 at 2:00 pm at the Grace Street Theater, 934 West Grace Street, Richmond, VA. Tickets are $15/$10 students with valid I.D. Group discounts available. Visit Showclix.com or call 804-828-2020 for reservations.

Program A

Mélange – Choreography by Helen Simoneau 

impalpable locus – Choreography by Megan Liverman + Elsie Neilson

The Sunday Conundrum – Video Choreography by Hannah Wojszynski

Dis/orient – Choreography by Ching-I Chang Bigelow

Las Almas Perdidas – Choreography by Eric Rivera

calm/pound – Video Choreography by Zoe Wampler + Michelle Koppl

Among – Choreography by Taylor Black

SWAY – Choreography by André Zachery

This year, VCU Dance NOW features new work by guest artist Helen Simoneau, and faculty members Ching-I Chang Bigelow, Eric Rivera, and André Zachery. In addition to faculty work, this year’s Dance NOW, in two rotating programs, includes eight works by current dance majors, including live dances and dance films. Student works were selected by an adjudication panel composed of faculty and students, and represent an engaging range of creative voices from within the Dance major.

Described by Dance Magazine as “a choreographer-on-the-rise” with a style that is both “athletic and smooth,” Helen Simoneau visited VCU Dance during the fall to set a new work on Dance majors. In her artist's statement, Simoneau notes, “The work I create is inspired and informed by a fascination with the intricacies of relationships and the vast spectrum of human dynamics. Through dance making I explore ways of expressing and sharing the ways we, as individuals, interact and relate to the larger group. Proximity, intimacy and personal space have been ongoing and appealing catalysts for me as they establish a visceral tension between performers and between the stage and the audience."

FACULTY WORKS
Ching-I Chang Bigelow's Dis/orient plays with the concept of colonized bodies, foreignness, and rituals. This work is a structured improvisation through shared stories. Witnesses will experience a collaboration from the following artists: VCU dancers (creative input); Ying-Fang Shen (visual animation), Associate Professor from Department of Communication Arts; and Chelsea Lee and her students from Space Research class (wearable objects), Adjunct Professor from Department of Art Foundation. - My body is colonized by collaborations. 

Eric Rivera in collaboration with Associate Professor Javier González Maeso, PhD from the School of Medicine Department of Physiology and Biophysics explore the stigma related to mental illness. This work, Las Almas Perdidas, investigates the complexity of the mental disorders and the “taboo” they have in our society.

André Zachery's SWAY remixes the sound and movement of Black spirituals through the lens of Afrofuturism. Traditionally, spirituals were coded hymns that communicated sorrow, pain, wonder, and even joy of Black slaves in bondage America. Yet at the root of spirituals was always an acknowledgment of better days on “the other side”, and a finding the way there. SWAY uncovers the motion, the feeling, and the unity that continues to move a people forward with a sense of cool, confidence, and consciousness.

SELECTED STUDENT WORKS
Taylor Black's among explores the connection between life in nature and human nature. Imagery from phototropism, the growth of an organism which responds to a light stimulus, has been used to create organic movements and relationships between the dancers and the aura surrounding them on stage.

Hallie Chametzky's the gentle light that strays explores intergenerational memory through personal research into the lineage, traditions, and learned behaviors of the performers and choreographer. The sound, arranged by VCU Music student Colton Dodd, combines an early 20th century Yiddish Klezmer tune with recording of Susan Sontag reading Adam Zagajewski's poem Try to Praise the Mutilated World. The music, text, and movement are in dialogue about ancestry, trauma, healing, and what it is to remember through the body and the mind. 

Bad Faith, a new work by Tabitha Kelly, evokes one's personal experience with gaslighting— a form of psychological manipulation. Through this tactic, the abuser aims to befuddle the victim, and create doubt in their perception, memory, and judgment. Over time, the lack of awareness of this sort of toxic manipulation can throw the victim off balance emotionally and psychologically, until the threat is confronted.

In their work impalpable locus, Megan Liverman and Elsie Neilson seek to reveal the unseen energetic connections between individuals. By using intuition and proprioception, the dancers alter the typical perception of how one views, coexists, and connects with other beings. This exploration brings a sense of intimate connection and spatial awareness through genuine sensation, rather than artificial connection.

Alicia Olivo's In Bello, meaning “in war,” is a short dance film about society's beauty standards and one’s desire to fulfill them to such an extreme that they become insane.

In her first dance film, The Sunday Conundrum, Hannah Wojszynski explores the strange way Sundays make her feel. In one frame, the film focuses on the tension between relaxing at the end of the week and gearing up for the stress to come on Monday -- an experience that plagues many in the fast-paced America of today. Ryan Davis created an original musical composition for the film.

VCU Dance NOW is the fourth event of the VCU Dance 2017-2018 Season. The presenting program of VCU Dance is committed to building and engaging dance audiences in the University and Richmond community while providing opportunities for artists to present and create work.

Funding for the 2017-2018 season is graciously provided in part by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Recognized by professional dancers and choreographers as “a place where things are happening,” Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography offers a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere where students prepare for careers in dance.

For more information about the Department of Dance and Choreography, please visit: www.arts.vcu.edu/dance

For more information about the Grace Street Theater and our Spring 2018 Season, please visit: www.arts.vcu.edu/gracestreet.