Last week I saw two dance seniors’ final research presentations in the form of a collaborative performance. I was very impressed with both of their works and the way in which they articulated a similar idea.
Personally, I thought that Q’s piece was too theatrical. His piece dealt with a religious identity crisis and how he has handled that throughout his life and while I loved the movements and he and the other dancers danced beautifully, it was just a little too obvious for my taste. Within the first few minutes I think the audience could figure out who was what and that it was literally a battle between heaven and hell. But because that theme became apparent almost right away, I found myself losing interest for the rest of it. In general I liked his music selections except for the one where heaven and hell appeared to be battling. I felt that the music was too big for the dance–it was big orchestral with lots of climaxes and slow increases in volume and quantity of players i think–and it overpowered the really beautiful movements.
Jess’s piece to me felt more wholesome and universal…there were more people on the stage who each had their own role but no one seemed to have more stage time than another or a more important role which enabled the audience to kind of put their own ideas or identities on the performers. I loved the use of text and thought that it was a good balance. i really didn’t like the song choice though. Because it was such a popular song–instrumental of Feeling Good–it had a VERY different connotation for me that thad nothing to do with what Jess was trying to get across so it just detracted from the piece and the movement for me.
choreography2015 