A riot of color in dance

Home Culture A riot of color in dance

Photo_of_the_Week_Tower_Dancers

Capture
This weekend Hillsdale can see meditations on life in motion at the Tower Dancers’ annual concert, featuring live music and productions worked on for the past year.

The performances will be 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in Markel Auditorium. Admission is free, and
no ticket is required. Students will perform five songs choreographed by Visiting Professor of Dance Holly Hobbs and Lecturer in Theatre Jessica Post as well as senior Sarah Schweizer and junior Heather Linder.

“Dance is a wonderful expression of grace and strength and power,” Hobbs said. “It’s always enjoyable to see. We have an outstanding group of dancers. This is our main performance for the year, so it’s the big opportunity to experience what we’re doing in our studio.”

New to this year’s performance is live music for a ballet to Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” from a student quartet directed by Professor of Music Melissa Knecht.

“It gives the opportunity to work with a live musician on stage, which means every performance will be slightly different,” Hobbs said.

While there is not a central theme to the concert, most of the performances are modern.

Schweizer also mentioned that in this concert, the dancers’ costumes explode with color.

“This year, it’s really eclectic,” Schweizer said. “Last year, everyone’s costumes were black and white. This year, everyone is just going for the rainbow, so it’ll be fun.”

The color, for Schweizer, also emphasizes the variety of ideas being portrayed in this year’s performance.
“This year, we’re all going for uniqueness,” Schweizer said. “It’s interesting we all started separately, but all the dances are about sharing or kindness or going on a journey. We all chose a humanitarian approach.”

Starting in the fall, Schweizer and Linder began choreographing their dances and finished teaching them to students this semester. They also worked with costume designer Bryan Simmons and lighting designer Michael Beyer.
Schweizer choreographed a modern dance entitled “A Mosaic of That Which We All Walk Through,” where she hopes to portray what makes up the common human experience.

“There’s lots of answers that are there in the piece, and hopefully there’s a resolution,” Schweizer said. “I’m intentionally vague because I want people to react honestly to my piece.”

Never having choreographed her own dance for a concert like this, Schweizer has learned from the experience.
“It’s been really intense,” Schweizer said. “I’m responsible for the dancers and their movement, but I also need to keep this artistic vision in mind and what they can do.”

Nonetheless, Schweizer has enjoyed creating and teaching the dance to her fellow performers.
“I was really worried my dancers wouldn’t like dancing my dance, but it’s been great,” Schweizer said. “It’s been really fun because my dance came out a lot better than I thought and better than I imagined just because the dancers are so willing and easy to work with. Movement is way more powerful than I thought it was.”
Her choreography also marks her achievements.

“I’m not the same dancer I was freshman year,” Schweizer said. “It shows a lot of growth. I get to try an essay in movement.”

Linder, who joined Tower Dancers two years ago, also developed her own dance. Her first challenge was picking a subject that would stretch her abilities.

“Professor Hobbs has been encouraging me to get into the metaphysical,” Linder said. “The first idea I choreographed was tea, and then I came to her with the idea of rocks. She’s like, ‘Keeping stretching that.’ I came back with ‘Rebound.’”

For Linder, while the concept of rebounding a ball is physical, there’s also an emotional experience with it.
“There’s the idea of yourself rebounding,” Linder said. “‘This day really sucks, but whatever, I’m going to bounce back.’ I spent a lot of time bouncing around in the studio finding ways of taking the simple idea of down and up and suspending and falling and trying to put that into more than just the simple idea of what they think it.”
While Linder has some choreography experience, the dance she created for the stage was a bit different from her usual performances.

“This is my first modern piece,” Linder said. “I’ve choreographed for show choir, and that’s everyone doing the same thing basically. In modern, I have to think how my natural movement will look on other people’s bodies. I’m working with amazingly talented girls, but each of them have different body types. What I’m thinking may not necessarily work, so let’s play with it.”

The dancers expressed their hopes that those on campus will come to watch their hard work.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t expect,” freshman Sarah Casebeer said. “There’s a lot of lifts and interesting choreography. It’ll open your mind to what our dance program is all about, innovation and creative choreography.”