Bates College Dance Company offers choreography by students, faculty and nationally renowned Urban Bush Women
Bates dancers perform an excerpt from the 2004 Urban Bush Women piece “Walking with Pearl….Africa Diaries.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
A senior dance major’s thesis piece for a solo performer and a work by New York City’s influential Urban Bush Women are among highlights of Leaning In, the Bates College Dance Company’s annual autumn program, presented in performances at 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16; 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17; and at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18.
NOTE: Contrary to a local newspaper report, Bates dance faculty and the Urban Bush Women dance troupe are not performing in these concerts. They have provided choreography for the student performers.
Performances take place in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. Admission is $6 for the general public and $3 for seniors and students. Tickets are available at batestickets.com. For more information, please call 207-786-6161.
Three weeks later, a second senior dance major presents a thesis piece. Colleen Fitzgerald performs “Intricate Glances Will Meet Here,” merging modern dance and tango, at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. The performance is open to the public at no cost.
Leaning In
Leroy Barnes ’14 performs a senior thesis work in hip hop. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
Leaning In features a senior thesis work in hip hop by Leroy Barnes ’14 of Woodbridge, Va., and pieces by faculty and guest choreographers, including the Urban Bush Women — founded in 1984 to, in the words of the company’s website, “bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance.”
UBW members Kendra Ross, Keisha Turner and Marjani Forté traveled from Brooklyn to Lewiston to teach Bates dancers an excerpt from the 2004 piece “Walking with Pearl….Africa Diaries,” based on the writings of dance pioneer and anthropologist Pearl Primus.
The 20-minute excerpt gives a glimpse into Primus’ quest to discover her cultural roots through dance. West African, Orisha and modern-dance movements are performed to traditional music, soundscapes and excerpts from Primus’ unpublished diaries, which will be read in this program by Bates senior Bethel Kifle ’14 of Chicago.
During their two-week Maine residency, Ross, Turner and Forté gave master classes to more than 150 students at Bates, the Lewiston Public Library, Tree Street Youth and Bowdoin College.
Also at Bates for a residency was choreographer Meredith Lyons, admissions director and operations manager for the Bates Dance Festival and a dancer and teacher active in Philadelphia before coming to Bates.
Lyons’ piece, titled “::subconscious::” is inspired by “the part of the mind that a person is not aware of,” says Lyons. “Both myself and the dancers created the movement in the moment. Each performance shifts and changes through cues and actions within each performer.”
Barnes performs Bates’ first-ever solo senior thesis in dance. A rapper and dancer, he conceived his performance as a dialogue with hip hop itself, challenging the form with words and motions delivered with eloquence, power and vulnerability.
Dancers perform “What’s Left,” choreographed by Associate Professor of Dance. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
The program features an improvisation ensemble directed by Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia. Her improvisation class has spent the semester “inventing movement, creating composition on the fly, listening to each other and the environment,” says Boggia. Offering a new piece for each performance, the four dancers come from backgrounds including theater, circus, modern dance and hip hop.
Also on the program: “What’s Left,” choreographed by Associate Professor of Dance Carol Dilley, director of the Bates dance program, and students; and “Gershwin Project,” choreographed by Debi Irons of the applied dance faculty and dancers in her jazz repertory class.
Through the swirling, lush “What’s Left,” Dilley and her dancers explore loss. Tender pairs emerge from a group of dancers who shuffle, bend and swish like marsh grasses to the gorgeous swells of GÛrecki’s “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.”
In “Gershwin Project,” dancers and musicians perform a trio to “Rhapsody in Blue.” This is an excerpt of an evening-length work commissioned by Aranka Matolcsy of Mahoosuc Arts in Bethel, where it will be presented with live music in January.
‘Intricate Glances Will Meet Here’
In her dance thesis, Fitzgerald of Granby, Conn., explores the fluid integration of Argentine tango and contemporary dance. She draws from the themes of intimate interaction, unpredictable yet mesmerizing movement, and invigorating musicality that are all present within the tango. This piece breaks the rigid barriers between social and concert dance, audience and performer, foreign and familiar, intimate and public.
