Sweet Briar College dance students and faculty will grace the stage at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 27 and 28 for the College’s annual fall dance concert. Featuring nine dance pieces, including two solos, the concert will be performed in Murchison Lane Auditorium at Babcock Fine Arts Center. Admission is free.
Junior Heather Coley will dance to the Etta James classic “At Last,” as performed live by SBC first-year Kathleen “Katie” Carr and Amherst pianist Deshay Glover. “[It] is a solo with the feel of classic blues — a woman who has been through many tough loves and has finally found The One,” Coley said.
SBC dance professor Mark Magruder called the solo routine a “jazzy piece” and said “She does an excellent job at relating to the song.”
Coley also has choreographed a group piece, using Gregorian chants and New Age music. “It is playing around with the idea of catch and release, defying gravity [and] breaking boundaries,” she said.
Natalie Batman will be dancing in Coley’s piece. The junior from Amherst has been involved in dance programs at Sweet Briar since elementary school. “My experience with the dance program has been overwhelmingly positive,” Batman said. “Both the faculty and the students involved with the program are so fun to interact with, and I have loved both of the technique classes I’ve taken in the department.”
Batman said she is “excited” to dance with Coley’s group, and called her classmate a “talented choreographer and dancer” and a “real asset to SBC’s dance program.”
Sophomore Emily Brown has chosen the music of George Winston for her modern dance solo, a piece that addresses age-old dilemmas. “[It’s] relating to the questions people go through at a certain age — soul searching,” Magruder said. “Who am I? What’s my direction? Where am I going? People can relate to it quite easily.”
Brown said her original intent was to dance without music, thinking the music would detract from the performance. “I felt it would alter the purpose of the movements,” she said. “But the steady beat of the solo piano contrasts nicely with the large and rapid movements as well as the moments of complete stillness without losing purpose.
Although known about campus for her innovative video dance projects, senior dance major Betty Skeen has choreographed a live dance for the fall concert. “The entire piece is based on the concept of falling — falling yourself and simultaneously saving those falling around you,” Skeen said.
Shanna Ryan, a junior math major with a minor in dance teaching, has incorporated a bit of the outdoors into her choreography. The president of SBC’s Taps and Toes dance club, Ryan will use bamboo poles in her group dance. “With the bamboo poles I am creating an exotic primitive dance about the oscillations of time,” she said.
Magruder, one of the production’s artistic directors, has choreographed a 10- to 12-minute piece with an oceanic theme. “It uses a lot of contact work, lifts [and] multiple levels, and tries to contrast the group dynamics,” he said, adding that some of the dancers might move slowly while others move fast.
Brione Smith, a first-year dance major from central New Jersey, is one of 12 students performing in Magruder’s nautical number. She will portray a dolphin and is excited about the opportunity to be lifted during the show. “It’s really a lot of fun,” she said.
Smith, who has been dancing since she was 3 years old, described the dance as “high energy” and said, “We get a pretty good workout doing it. It’s really different.”
More than 30 students will perform in the concert, making it one of the largest casts the annual concert has featured. For more information on the fall dance concert, call Magruder at 381-6150.
Mark Magruder and members of his advanced modern dance class practice in the new dance facilities at Babcock Fine Arts Center. Photo by Suzanne Ramsey.
.— By
Suzanne Ramsey,
SBC staff writer
