Trouper

March 8, 2016

The summer before going to college, an upstate New York teenager attended a Skidmore dance workshop led by the acclaimed Doug Varone and Dancers. She majored in dance at Skidmore, graduating in 2008, and by 2014 she was a member of the Varone company. Now Casey Loomis ’08 is returning to campus as a Varone professional to work with students in several dance classes.

After graduation, Loomis danced with the Metropolitan Opera, Compagnie Julie Bour, Faye Driscoll, Netta Yerushalmy, Buglisi Dance Theater, ChristinaNoel & the Creature, and other groups. In 2010 The New York Times said she “lends a luminous presence to the stage." Today, along with her Varone work, she performs with Jenny Rocha's Painted Ladies.

Having done some teaching on tour with Varone, Loomis was delighted by the prospect of a mini-residency at Skidmore, slated for March 9 to 11. She says college-age students “are my favorite! They’re so eager, hungry, adaptable, smart, discerning.” But she remembers her own college days, “struggling with the dissonance I felt between the person I was out in the world and the person I was in the studio,” so she hopes to make the Skidmore dancers “feel comfortable inviting their whole selves into the room.”

Working closely with students in four modern-dance classes, she will try to convey elements of the signature Varone movement style, which she says “embodies a unique duality: a grounded expansiveness, a sureness and an unaffected nature, an ancient knowing paired with a lightness, a quickness, an incessant letting go.” Also, she says, “I'm interested in cultivating clarity, a keen eye, a fearlessness (no apologies for taking up space!), and a sense of play.”

Like several other dance faculty members, Mary Harney is eager to welcome Loomis back to the department. This semester Harney is heading the capstone course for senior dance majors. Along with choreography and performance work, she says, the course includes visits from professionals in dance and related fields, and “Casey will be speaking with our students about what to expect regarding continued training, auditioning, job availability, etc.”

After Loomis’s mini-residency, the Varone troupe will return to Skidmore for another Summer Programs dance residency, June 5­–25. That summer session, for preprofessional and professional dancers at intermediate and advanced levels, is now accepting applications.