VCU dances toe-to-toe with the individualism

This past weekend dance students and faculty performed at the annual Student/ Faculty Concert, which was eclectic to say the least. Guest artist Tere O’ Connor choreographed a piece, “Monet’s Cousins,” for the concert, in which the VCU dancers looked just as amazing as those in February’s “Choke.”

The night opened with an unexpected performance, “Cricketty Ricket and the Chicks with Sticks.” Nine dancers stepped out on stage in kitschy outfits. Cricketty Ricket himself wore silver pants and danced while drumming. And when I say danced, I mean everything that you can possibly do while drumming: kicking, twirling, running around, flipping sticks. They even put a drum wave in there for extra measure. This interesting dance was exciting and fun. The audience loved it.

“Beautiful Giants” was an all female piece that had a tribal theme. It began with a group of women holding one woman over their heads, spinning her and then finally setting her down. The piece seemed to have many underlying meanings about how women interact with one another.

The soloist, who was lifted above the girls’ heads, was amazing in her strength and agility as a dancer. As the dance progressed, the women seemed to dance better and better. A moment that I thought was amazing was when the girls paired up and tossed and twirled each other.

By the third piece, “Blink,” I realized that I would have to expect anything at this recital. This piece had some deeply erotic undertones, especially when a couple paired up. The interesting part of this pairing was that they did many lifts, but it was always the woman lifting the man. Breathing was a focal point of this dance. It was strange to see a stage full of dancers panting while doing small repeated movements, but the overall affect was amazing.

The two dances choreographed by Professor Audrey Jung were sweet and lovely. The first, “A Dedication to Iz,” she performed by herself. On the wall behind her, a picture of a Hawaiian icon, Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole, came up before and after her dance.

This piece was an interpretative hula dance of “Wind Beneath My Wings.” What made this dance even more special was the fact that Kamakawiwo’ole sang the music. Jung performed each lyric of the song with her moves and even imitated a bird while the chorus was playing. After she finished dancing, Jung kneeled into a ball with the stage. Lights turned off as Kamakawiwo’ole’s picture was displayed again.

The traditional Chinese “Red Scarf Dance” Jung performed along with Hye-Jung Lee. Twirling small blue scarfs at first, the two ran off stage to grab huge red scarves. They twirled these in big beautiful loops and swirls. It looked like they were painting the sky with the bright red cloth.

My favorite dance of the night was “Other Side of Shadow,” which was choreographed by Scott Putman. This dance focused a great deal on the video that was playing on the back screen and all around the dancers.

One great part of this piece was the beautiful movements the dancers performed while the screen showed rain, which made their all-white outfits look stunning.

Two dancers stood in the middle of the stage dancing around each other while four others lined the stage, laying down with only their upper body showing and then sitting back up, which created a lovely stage picture. Another perfect moment was when three dancers stood with their legs out looking like swans while the other seven dancers moved around them.

In the program under O’ Connor’s “Monet’s Cousins,” he states, “Portions of the movement material for this work were created in collaboration with the dancers. I would like to thank them for their creativity and hard work during this very enjoyable process.”

I kept this in mind as I watched and I was blown away by the thought of the students creating some of the unique movements that were being performed on stage. An interesting part was when one man imitated a painter with strange quick brushstrokes and then began to convulse.

Another stunning moment was when the cast divided into two lines, gaily prancing and skipping back and forth on the stage.

Each dance had very little, if any, connection to the previous one but somehow the program flowed well. The individualism of the VCU Dance department shined this past weekend.