Join us for an Independent Study in Dance Class Showing as five advanced NC State Dance Program students present their original dance works that they have created during the Independent Study in Dance course (DAN 498). A short Q&A session to follow each piece. The dance themes range from eating disorder to revealing sexual orientation.
Independent Study in Dance fosters the creation, performance, and production of innovative choreographic works that demonstrate content through new and intellectualized choreographic processes and structures. This course encourages the development of new forms that support the content ideas. This course also encourages advanced performance processes and techniques that clarify movement expression and enhance content in the creation of choreographic work.
Thursday, Nov. 30 from 5-6:30 p.m.
Rehearsal hall in Thompson Hall (University Theatre building)
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Program
Circulus in Probando (2017)
Choreography: Gini Brown, Arts NC State Creative and Performing Artist Awards recipient
Circulus in Probando is inspired by personal experiences of self-doubt and hopelessness which resulted from pattern of cyclical behavior. In working with the diverse array of dancers featured in the piece who all experience unique cyclical thought patterns and subsequent behaviors, Brown believes the piece has taken on a new meaning. By exploring one’s relationships with oneself, the dancers have each discovered that self-doubt often drives the way humans interact with each other, and we all walk a line between who we inherently are and the perfect version of ourselves we desperately aspire to be.
A Taste (2017)
Choreography: Raine Conti, Arts NC State Creative Artist Award recipient
A Taste is inspired by a personal experience surrounding the war against an eating disorder that consumed her life for multiple years. The piece focuses on the aftermath of an abusive relationship with one’s self, that caused a distorted perception of the body, self-worth, control, and happiness, for which eventually suffocates the mind entirely.
Perfect Sight (2017)
Choreography: Madison Johnson
Perfect Sight is inspired by Tatyana Brown’s spoken word poem “Gaslit.” The piece focuses on the concept of gaslighting, a form of emotional and psychological abuse and is intended to take the audience inside the mind of a victim.
After Dark (2017)
Choreography: Liangyu Zhu
After Dark is a piece exploring a person’s relationship with him/herself, the most inner emotions which bring people pains that cannot be described by words, the inexplicable darkness, the conflicts among splitted thoughts and personalities. The dancers each represent one of the sources of pains, including narcissism, anger, fear, cloudy minds and attachment. The piece aims to open up the audience to an isolated place where our minds live in, a place where no one has visited, a place where the “self” is stuck in.
I Have Something To Tell You (2017)
Choreography: Brooke Yannayon
I Have Something To Tell You depicts the personal experience of a young girl coming out to her parents and the emotional turmoil that follows. Movements and relationships are drawn from Yannayon’s own experience of seeing unconditional love at play with hurt, anger, shock and misunderstanding. The piece aims to give an honest look at how a strong family can be undone by unwelcome news and how sexual orientation is still a taboo and misunderstood concept in many ways.
