University Dancers Present 39th Annual Concert

University Dancers' 39th Annual Dance Concert, titled “MOVING BODIES | BODIES MOVING,” encapsulated the power of dance as a catalyst for creativity and community. 

This year's dance concert featured three showcases from Friday through Sunday. The showcase presented a diverse array of captivating pieces by renowned choreographers from New York City, including Ephrat Asherie, Larry Keigwin and Takehiro Ueyama. Additionally, UR faculty choreographers Angelica Burgos, Alicia Díaz, Eric Rivera and Director of Dance Anne Van Gelder contributed four dynamic dances. The program comprised three enchanting works by student choreographers, junior Maggie Crowe, senior Zara DuBoyce and junior Hannah Zaheer.

Ten dances were featured in total, spanning a two-hour performance with an intermission. As each dance unfolded on stage, it became a poignant moment of artistic expression intimately connected to the lives of the choreographers.

The concert commenced with "To Touch a Dark Dream II", choreographed by Van Gelder, which premiered in February 2008 at the Modlin Center for the Arts.

The dance featured exquisite layers of tulle and an immersive element where the dancers' reflections were projected onto the backdrop. Van Gelder explained that this effect was achieved using a GoPro Camera, intermittently activated to capture live video feeds.

Stage manager and sophomore Keira Vogel said Van Gelder's piece was one of her favorites, calling it "magical." 

This theme of revisitation and evolution resonated throughout the program, exemplified by Rivera’s piece "Por el Tiempo". 

"For this year's work, I actually restarted a piece that I choreographed in 2018,” Rivera said. “And the reason was I came back earlier in the fall from work that I was doing in Cuba. And I saw that work once again after almost five years. And I fell in love with it again, so I wanted to share it with the students here. It was a solo, but I wanted to create it with more dancers. So I made this solo into a trio." 

One of the most captivating and artistically beautiful pieces was Burgos's "Las Dos/The Two,” influenced by the renowned painting "The Two Fridas" by Frida Kahlo, which portrays the interdependence and duality of human experience.

"I happened to help my daughter look for an artist that she wanted to explore for a school project, and she focused on Frida Kahlo, and through looking at different works of Frida, I stumbled upon the painting of the ‘Two Fridas,’” Burgos said. “And I felt like that was the concept that I really wanted to explore. From there, we took off and focused on ideas about the artist while also stepping away from the painting and exploring other concepts such as duality, passion, femininity and masculinity.”

The duet was visually stunning, with sophomore Annie Hamilton and senior dance captain Ariana Sosa's costumes, designed by associate professor of theater Johann Stegmeir, echoing the attire depicted in the painting. They performed in front of a large canvas-like prop, creating the illusion that they were immersed within the artwork itself.

Crowe shared her unique approach to creating her choreographic debut for the dance department with her piece "Fleet."

"I really did not have any idea what I was going to do," Crowe said. "So I approached it in a kind of unique way, which is looking through texts I had written previously. I found recurring metaphors of water and thought that was something that could be really visually enticing, and then built the movement from there."

For the scenery of the piece, Crowe and other crew members created an image of blue water themselves. 

"We were downstairs in the traps beneath the stage with paint, water and a can,” Crowe said. “We put the music on, watched the video, and synchronized our movements with sticks and air horns to match the music for when they were on stage."

DuBoyce and Zaheer described their processes of choreographing their dances, both embracing the transformative influence of music in their creative process.

"I started with music because it is very helpful when generating choreography,” DuBoyce said of her approach to crafting her piece, “Are You There,” a heartfelt homage to her grandmother. “So then I would just spend time in the studio coming up with steps and then piecing it together." 

Zaheer echoed a similar sentiment in her process for "In Changing, We Stay." 

"Ideas or concepts kind of came to me in pieces over time, but I am mostly inspired by music when creating the movement," she said. 

Crowe said the most enjoyable aspect of the creative process is witnessing her ideas  materialize.

"My favorite part of being a choreographer is just getting to see something in your head come to fruition, because you can think about things all you want, but it's really different to see it on other people's bodies,” she said. “And then there's joy in seeing things come out differently, and getting to collaborate with the people that are in the dance, and understanding how I can be better based on what makes them better."

Contact lifestyle editor Emma Galgano at emma.galgano@richmond.edu.