Senior dance students collaborate on final project

Danielle Elliott

Contributing Writer

Nine senior dance majors will come together to present “Pastiche,” the capstone to their time in VCU’s dance department beginning this Thursday at the Grace Street Theater.

The dancers will examine themes such as personal struggles, war, loss and sensuality, and attempt to personify scientific concepts.

Eight of the nine seniors began in the Creative Dance track in their freshman year, while one, Kyoko Ruch, began on the performance track of the dance curriculum

“(Ruch) split her time between VCU and (being) a trainee at the Richmond Ballet,” said co-professor of the Senior Project class, Lea Marshall.

While Ruch will be performing a piece chosen for her by Malcolm Burn, the Ballet Master from the Richmond Ballet, the other eight students will be presenting original choreography.

Jasmine Domfort explores the ritualistic nature of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in her piece “Other Side Please!” Her piece is based in repetition and anxiety based rituals.

According to Marshall, the group of nine is a little larger compared to the normal class of four to six students, but it allows for “a wider range of voices.”

The performance is meant to showcase each student’s work in a way that somehow fits into the larger theme that the class identifies.

“They’re each making an individual project and sometimes its kind of hard to find a common thread other than they’re all working for find their own creative voice,” Marshall said.

Margaret Allen’s piece, “Al fondo,” was inspired by Pablo Neruda’s poetry.  His poetry inspired her to convey various aspects of the ocean through dance. Her main goal is to create poetry in motion.

Preparation for the senior dance project begins in freshman year with students taking several different types of classes; including music classes that help students relate music to movement. Planning for the senior project begins in the students’ junior year when they create a proposal for the piece they plan to perform the next year.

“It’s a culmination of a project they began working on as a freshman,” Marshall said.