Category: Dance

REVIEW: Resurgence: We’re Bringing Sexy Back by Pure Dance

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Apparently, the dancers at Pure Dance had been busy last semester.

Their annual showcase took place last Sunday evening and featured nine stunning student-made choreographies complete with all the twirls, body rolls, and hair whips you could ask for. Furthermore, we were treated to a diverse range of guest performances by Salto, Gimble, FunKtion, Groove, Blue Bop Jazz, DB3, and Flowdom. Sitting in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, the energy of the crowd was close-knit and infectious–people were not shy about loudly cheering for their friends on stage. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the showcase’s theme coming in, but I found that they were able to present a really interesting curation of dances embodying “resurgence”… and dare I say sexiness?

My favorite number had to be Illusion of Bliss, which was impressively performed in black high heel boots. The contrast between the slow hard beats of the beginning section with these incredibly sensual movements backed by Alicia Keys’ soulful raspy voice and the ending section with the imagery of the dancers sinking to their knees in prayer as she sings “I don’t wanna be a fallen angel” told a compelling story. Meanwhile, Mad at You and War of Hearts approached the concept from a more modern/contemporary angle, with flowing cascades of movement. Like a Boy seemed to pull from old-school hip hop influences with sharp jutting elbows while Toxic had a high-energy hard rock edge such that the dancers were practically throwing themselves into poses.

I also thought the guest performers did an incredible job. Hip hop dance practice videos on Instagram are probably one of my guilty pleasures, so I loved FunKtion’s tight transitions and incorporation of humor as well as Flowdom’s clean hits and charisma. Plus, it was nice to see Blue Bop Jazz’s saxophones hyping each other up during their solos!

The final choreography was Bride, which created some beautiful visuals out of the entire ensemble. The dancers wore a pretty pastel/neutral color palette and had a continual flow of synchronized bodies passing on and off stage, which paired well with the bubbly hopeful music. As a goofy ending note, the showcase fittingly concluded with everyone dancing to Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack for the curtain call.

Congratulations to all the performers who were a part of the event! I look forward to seeing what Pure Dance will bring next.

PREVIEW: Resurgence: We’re Bringing Sexy Back by Pure Dance

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I don’t typically frequent dance events, but with a name like “Resurgence: We’re Bringing Sexy Back,” I had to check this one out. 

Pure Dance is a student-run organization at the University of Michigan that welcomes dancers with a broad range of backgrounds. They will be hosting their annual showcase this Sunday, featuring member-choreographed dances and guest performances from an exciting mix of a capella, instrumental, and other dance groups.

Although I have long buried my childhood ballerina days, I am excited to see some of my friends perform on stage. Additionally, I look forward to getting to know some of the other performance groups on campus. While Pure Dance is known for doing contemporary and jazz dance styles, I have also been told to look out for ballet, hip hop, and K-pop!

Come support Pure Dance on Sunday, January 23rd at 6:00 pm at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater! Free tickets are available through this month’s Passport to the Arts.

Event info: myumi.ch/488My

REVIEW: The Short and Suite Nutcracker

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While watching this show I kept thinking of what words to use to describe how awesome this is.
The Short and Suite Nutcracker by the Randazzo Dance company was a dance show featuring different dance styles. It had ballet, jazz, tap dancing, and more. For the tap-dancing, and some jazz performances there was live music which added a cherry on top. The kaleidoscope of genres kept the show refreshing and fun. I am not exaggerating when I say there were no dull moments.

All the dancers performed extremely well. There were dancers as young as, I might say, 5 years old to the oldest being seniors in high school. It was such a joy and privilege to watch all these young performers. It was wonderful to see them flaunt their skills and months of hard work. Despite the sheer number of performers, dance genres, set changes, etc. the show went smoothly. Thereby showing how well organized it was and how much practice the performers had done.

No part of this show was left unpolished. The costumes were simply gorgeous. They had been designed to really shine on stage and make every child look like a professional. The choice of music was tasteful and never boring. The lighting was well done as well as all the fun props and backgrounds.

In the second half of the show, the dances became more festive. There was a plot following the dances and it was a lot of fun. The dancers performed acrobatics, played with giant soft toys, did costume changes, and much more. It was a lively time. Their holiday energy was infectious and the pacing of the dances made the ending really extravagant and over the top in the best way possible.

I am glad I got to see all these extremely talented performers. No praises are enough for them. I know I will be on the lookout for any showcases from the Randazzo dance company!

REVIEW: Sa re ga ma pella

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Sa re ga ma pella by Maize Mirchi featured 8 songs, an intermission with Indian snacks, a dance performance by Michigan Taal and a really really excited audience.

The acapella singers did a good job harmonizing and it was nice to know some songs were independently set up by students. The introductions of the new members between songs was one of my favorite parts. The introductions were short, sweet and really funny. We got to know a lot about the companionship shared between the members of Maize Mirchi. The audience consisted of parents and friends of the performers and they were really engaged with the performances and cheering their loved ones on.

A point I would like to highlight is the cultural fusion of this group. They are an acapella group with a touch of Indian culture. I would say their group shows a kaleidoscope of Indian American culture. Less than half of the songs were in an Indian language and some of these were half English half Hindi. The western Indian mix was well carried by the performers. Their coordination really hit the sweet spot!

The soloists showed a very authentic image of Indian American culture and by the excitement of the audience it was obvious their supporters liked it. I think the song selection could have been improved to show more diversity but it was an entertaining show regardless.

The performance after the intermission by Michigan Taal was short and sweet. The size of the stage was very small but they did not let it hinder them. They had an exciting diversity of dances and their energy was infectious.

Being at the acapella concert was like being at an intimate event for family and friends where everyone knew each other and supported performers.

If you like Indian American culture and acapella then Sa Re Ga Ma pella can’t hit it more on the head than anything else!

REVIEW: Crush Depth

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In the new Dance building’s Performance Studio Theatre last Friday night, three Senior Dance students in the BFA program at UM: Zach Morris, Daniel Niewoit, and Jenna Segal, presented pieces of choreography they had created.

Finding the Dance building in the darkness of 7:30 PM on North Campus was interesting, but on the plus side I crossed paths with a stag on the way there! Truly a sign of the magic that was to come.

The audience shuffled into a few sets of low-rise stands on one side of the room, facing a floor space enclosed by giant black curtains. I loved this setup – the space was simple, open, and intimate.

The fluidity of the dancers’ movements was amazing. Each movement looked so easy and natural that it looked unintentional, but in the back of my mind I knew that every single thing was so very intentional.

My favorite piece was called vitmossa, choreographed by Jenna Segal. I’ve created the nigh-impossible task for myself of trying to describe a dance piece in words, but I’ll do my best. It featured 5 dancers (Ruby Clay, Katherine Kiessling, Nana Otaka, Madison Rogers, and Mia Rubenstein) who interacted with swaths of fabric and with each other. At times the dancers would fall to the ground, searching for something in the seams of the fabric. There was so much contrast from one scene to the next. There was a moment where they marched together from one corner of the stage to another – and when one fell behind they stiffly marched back and dragged her the rest of the way. In another moment, when one dancer dropped to the floor, another tenderly lifted her up.

The pulse of the music ebbed and flowed as the tension in the piece built. The lighting design was INCREDIBLE.  lights stacked inside scaffolds on either side of the stage cast vibrant reds and blues on the dancers to make the emotions of the piece even more palpable. The ending of the piece, when the music fades to a hum and you can hear all of the dancers breathing heavily in synchronized time, was so powerful and made me feel something that I still can’t name.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit on the meaning of the title of the exhibition: Crush Depth. My guess is that it’s referring to the depth ratings of submarines. The calculated depth at which a submarine’s hull will be crushed by water pressure is called its “crush depth.” Make of that what you will 🙂 I think the beauty of every piece in the exhibition was in how anyone could take away their own meaning from it.

So much work went into each of these pieces, from music composition and sound design to visual design to lighting design to choreography and blocking. I am so impressed by what the students in the Dance program are capable of and look forward to going to more of their exhibitions!

REVIEW: Zero Grasses by Jen Shyu

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I confess that I don’t quite know how to review Jen Shyu’s Zero Grasses performance piece. I’m a beginner to performance art. I don’t see it very often, and when I do most of it goes over my head. It’s true that I didn’t understand all of this performance, but what I can say is that I am so, so glad I went to it regardless because it connected with parts of my identity that I didn’t expect it to.

This artist residency was made possible by the Center for World Performance Studies (CWPS) at UM! They connect with students, artists, and scholars all across the globe to advocate for the power of performance for research and for public engagement. They work with lots of great artists, and center on underrepresented, non-Western, and diasporic voices, bodies, and acts. Check out their website to learn more, their next event is coming up on December 8.

Jen Shyu is a vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and dancer. She graduated from Stanford in opera and has

 

classical violin and ballet training and has studied traditional music and dance from numerous cultures around the world. I went into Jen Shyu’s performance knowing none of this and came out thinking one thing: She is fully, imperfectly, human.

In Zero Grasses, Jen Shyu explores parts of her past that are, as she described in the post-performance Q&A, “icky.” She reenacted the moment she found out about her father’s passing while working abroad. The news came from an email message, cold and stark and impersonal, screenshotted and projected onto the stage. She danced and sang through the story of a relationship she had with a man twice her age. She read a diary entry from her childhood about the time she was called a racial slur as she stepped off the bus. She lay on the floor in grief when, after a lengthy and expensive medical procedure, the doctor only extracted one viable egg.

The performance was not neatly separated. She skips back and forth between chapters of her life, showing how messy they are, showing how a page written in a diary journal when she was 8 has parallels with her job as a salsa dancer at age 23. The creativity of it all blew me away. Numerous different instruments (most of which I can’t remember the names of) were strategically placed around the stage. Jen would fluidly move between them, coaxing music out of each to back up her rich singing like it was as easy as breathing. The main props used were giant cardboard boxes, each with artifacts from her past. At times she would paw through the boxes, fling them across the stage, or stack them on top of each other as a makeshift wall to project media onto.

The projections of pictures and videos that she had taken on her phone made it so REAL. I was looking at history but I was also looking at something that was continuously being created, a picture that could have been taken yesterday. I think it was the perfect way to capture Jen’s journey with grief, how she felt it anew each day. It was very alive.

In the Q&A, I asked how she was able to explore these vulnerable parts of her past and portray herself in a light that isn’t so great while still protecting her mental health. She responded that she is always thinking about who she could be helping with her art. She feels she would be doing more harm if she DIDN’T talk about these uncomfortable topics because they’re already taboo and it’s hard for people to find a safe space to process them. She does this in an attempt to have that connection with somebody in the audience who thinks “You’re not alone, I was there too at one point in my life.”

I really admire that courage.