Big capstone-concert weekend coming up for student dancers

For a select group of Skidmore student dancers, April 9, 10, and 11 will be their weekend to shine, when nine seniors present their capstone concerts. Traditionally, that would mean a concert of original new works created by the graduating seniors and performed under their direction by their fellow Skidmore student dancers.

But this year something new has been added?dance performance. "This year the program was opened up to solo dance performers," said Debra Fernandez, professor and chair of the dance department. Three senior dance majors promptly exercised the new option, so this year's concert program will consist of three dance solos along with five group works and a larger experiential piece to be performed in a Sunday afternoon show all its own.

The concerts featuring group choreography and solo performers will begin Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10, at 8 p.m.; the Sunday, April 11, piece will begin at 2 p.m. All performances will take place in the Dance Theater. Admission is free, but seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.  

To create their capstone performances, solo dancers Jesse Kovarsky, Khalila Young, and Megan Larabee each approached an admired choreographer and requested a piece of choreography. Kovarsky sought out Leah Cox, a premier dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, whom he had met during the company's previous Skidmore residencies. When Kovarsky asked Cox to set a dance on him, an unusual creative process began.   "We will create a solo together over e-mail, " decided Cox, who e-mailed off a set of starter questions. Kovarsky created movement material around his answers, then joined Cox in New York City to polish the work. Tentatively titled As of 3/26, it will be danced to a spoken text composed by Kovarsky and edited by Cox.

Dancer Khalila Young chose the bold international choreographer Stephanie Batten-Bland, whose company performed at last summer's SaratogaArtsFest.   Young was given one of Batten-Bland's own solos to perform.   Titled The Polished Hoe, the piece explores the conflicting emotions of a woman of multiracial descent, set to music of Bach and Louisiana Creole. Meghan Larabee made her request for choreography to the Battleworks Dance Company's star and rehearsal director Erika Pujic, who not only accepted but traveled to Skidmore to work with Larabee.   Watching as the partnerships unfolded, Fernandez marveled that "Each Skidmore dancer got paired with a perfect complement?whatever they needed, they received."

With the new dance solos progressing, pressure was on for students creating original choreography. "They're scrambling to define themselves as artists, working independently with less input from faculty, looking to each other to discuss artistic ideas and challenges," observed Fernandez mid-semester. "This capstone really caught fire. By putting more pressure on our students, we upped the ante.   And rather than shying away from that pressure, they loved it. Banding together beyond the classroom is what they should be doing now," Fernandez adds. "They're transforming themselves from students to young independent artists. "

Among those rising to the challenge of crafting a unique choreographic vision was Sara Miller-Hornick, whose 40-minute Mo_rning Without "U" will be presented at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 11. Augmented with live music, artwork, pi atas, costumes, and site-specific backdrops and d cor, the piece was inspired by traditional Hispanic celebrations of the Day of the Dead. The presentation will begin in the Sports Center gym adjacent to the Dance Theater, which Miller-Hornick says "will be transformed into a marketplace," with salsa dancing and live music by the Albany-area Bryan Brundige Collective. A procession will lead into the dance studios, where the eight-dancer performance will take place, complete with a ritual calling back of the ancestors?among them a Skeleton ancestor played by Brundige musician and dancer Dha'Sean Serrano.

Elana Jacobs's Leave a Yourself After the Beep will combine five dancers   (including capstone soloist Kovarsky) with an original score composed by Luke Santy '09, video by Elissa Nadworny '10, and messages from her voice mail in a mixed-media piece "inspired by the ever-changing relationship we have with ourselves," as Jacobs explained. "We're constantly trying to merge the self we know and the self we choose to show to others." Brendan Duggan's Trying to Play Human is described as a depiction of social interactions in emergency situations. To music of Michael Pisaro, Deru, Sufjan Stevens & Osso,  Duggan's   seven dancers portray "the inability of bystanders to act when a stranger is in trouble," he explains. AndCarly Goldstein, a double major in dance and psychology, created a dance based on the psychological study of sleep.   Her nine-minute piece, When You Lie Down and When You Rise Up, plays with sleep-related themes ranging from bedtime rituals to daydreaming, using dance movement drawn from such familiar actions as waking up and turning off the alarm clock or hugging a teddy bear.   

With capstone weekend coming up fast, the dance students are starting to look forward to showtime, and the thrill of seeing friends and some of their favorite non-dance faculty in the audience. "They seem so excited to come," says Goldstein, who sent invitations. "That means a lot to us."