Yearlong Audition: Rex Kennedy auditions for Dance majors senior projects

Michael Todd
Assistant Spectrum Editor

Senior Projects, which occur during both the fall and spring semesters, are the capstone to the VCU Dance department curriculum and allow senior dance majors to demonstrate their knowledge and skills of the art acquired during their educational careers. During the spring semester of junior year, rising seniors submit proposals to the department concerning everything from their inspirations, developmental process, and intended themes all the way to costuming, potential casting, and rehearsal conduction—all before their ideas are even approved. Operated on a pass or fail basis, rising seniors receive only one opportunity to get it right. If they pass, the department designates which seniors present in the fall and spring semesters; this is usually based upon credit hours earned. However, should they fail, the students must reapply the following fall. 

Despite all of the pressure, VCU Dance freshman Rex Kennedy isn’t worried in the slightest.

For their Senior Projects, students choose freshman dance students to help with their proposals by following their directions and dancing in their productions. Kennedy auditioned for the senior projects this past Friday.

“I’m feeling fine. It should be a pretty laid-back audition,” Kennedy said a few minutes before his audition began. “I know a lot of seniors, (and) it’ll be nice… auditioning for them.”

Kennedy hopes to be cast in the piece by his friend, Rachel Brady, who he met over the summer at the American Dance Festival. Brady is also his ‘big’ in the dance department, meant to be a mentor to help Kennedy through his freshman year.

“I’m excited to see what (the seniors) are doing,” said Kennedy. “I read all the descriptions of all the pieces… (and) they seem pretty interesting.”

Held during their workshop time, the audition was mandatory for all VCU dance majors through the junior level. However, just as it will be at the discretion of the seniors to dismiss any selected dancers who prove to act unprofessionally, dancers of all levels retain the right to turn down any roles in which they are cast.

Most seniors will select additional understudies in the event of dismissals, sickness or schedule conflicts.

Seniors watched from the back wall as freshmen and sophomores auditioned together, with juniors auditioning on their own.

“We all set up how we wanted the audition to run,” said Kamali Hill, a senior dance major. “We had a meeting (where) we decided what we wanted to see (and) what is each person looking for: fluidity, power, creativity, virtuosity, performance, individuality.”

The first section was strictly movement-based, with one senior orchestrating a series of gestural phrases her fellow dance majors had to mimic and commit to memory as quickly as possible.

After repeating this series of movements a few times, the following exercise required students to perform the routine again while handicapping themselves either with a tick, such as a constantly moving body part, or by holding a pose or constricting movement in some manner.

The second exercise moved students diagonally across the room from corner to corner in order to demonstrate their ability to “cover space,” as well as to explore their ability to reach varying different levels.

The third and final exercise divided dancers into groups of four to five to test their improvisation skills as well as the ways in which they were able to interact with fellow performers.

“We don’t want people that are timid and scared,” Hill said about the importance of this exercise. “We want people that will dive out there and do it.”

During Kennedy’s improv section, the freshman moved across the floor in a somewhat lumbering manner led almost entirely by his side. Near the conclusion of his session, he and another student ended up in a crouched tug-of-war using either one of a third dancer’s legs as the rope. Finally, as if via telepathic communication, the pair shouted simultaneously, “She’s mine,” striking an especially comical chord with the seniors before the group’s session came to a close.

“I just wish for the first round people would have… gotten more out of the box,” Kennedy said after the exercise. “That’s what I was looking for… to have fun and do some character stuff, not just watch me contact improv with this person.”

After the experience, Kennedy said he was feeling confident, but had a few critiques toward his fellow dancers.

“I felt good, I just wish they had given us more time to learn things,” Kennedy admitted. “I (also) feel like people could have been counting more and paying more attention to the rest of the group instead of acting as individuals… Yes, it’s an audition, but you’re responsible for keeping your whole group together and you can see when somebody does something and messes up.”

Following the mass audition, Kennedy was given only an hour break to get lunch before his first rehearsal with Vivian Villagrana for Nikolai McKenzie’s junior composition class.

McKenzie began his rehearsal by

asking Kennedy and Villagrana to lay on their backs.

Speaking over meditation music, McKenzie repeatedly read and reread Mary Oliver’s poem “White Flowers,” occasionally emphasizing certain words or phrases such as “sticky and untidy,” “plush” and “resplendently empty” for the dancers to keep in mind.

As McKenzie repeated the poem, Kennedy and Villagrana began to stir as the words and music influenced them. They moved slowly at first, using their toes and fingers, but soon began rolling their heads, arching their backs, and contorting their limbs, somewhat like hypnotized circus performers. By the end of the exercise, the pair were up and moving about in their spaces, albeit somewhat wobbly.

“I was basically trying to figure out how I can get them to internalize the poem without just pumping it out,” said McKenzie. “Today… was basically just to get them more acclimated with the environment that I’m trying to create.”

Next, McKenzie instructed them step-by-step on a series of movements, much like the audition earlier that morning. Soon after, however, instead of having the pair repeat the movement, McKenzie had Kennedy and Villagrana experiment with combining the separate movements in whatever made most sense to them. From here, McKenzie worked with the pair on tweaking the movements, synchronizing them in some areas, adding physical contact in others and adding new moves altogether until the end result was barely recognizable from where the trio had begun.

“The style or the vocabulary that really influences me is Ohad Naharin’s Gaga technique,” said McKenzie of the entire process, which he summarized as a very condensed version of the various improv techniques he’s experienced over the years. “It’s really sensory and more about your own individual body.”

Kennedy, who had practiced the Gaga dance style at the American Dance Festival over the past two summers, said he was excited to find someone doing the same thing.

Later that day, Kennedy received word that he was cast in both Brady’s and Hannah Weber’s senior projects. He was also cast as an extra in Christina Kolb’s project.

Brady’s piece will deal with the dark abstraction, heavy symbolism and grotesque imagery of German Expressionist film, translated and reinterpreted using the human form.

Weber’s will explore “continuity, rhythm, musical expression, and subtle percussive movement.” Kolb’s piece draws inspiration from the idea of disorientation as a result of form alteration.

Fall senior projects will take place at Grace Street Theatre, Nov. 14-18thbeginning at 8 p.m., with tickets at $15 general admission and $10 for students.

Spring senior projects will take place April 24-27.