By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Kayleigh Hahn is back where she wants to be – on stage dancing in front of a live audience.
Kayleigh is one of two dozen dancers performing in “Alight: Fall Dance Concert” presented by the BGSU Department of Theatre and Film, tonight (Nov. 19) and Saturday (Nov. 20) at 8 p.m. at the Donnell Theatre in the Wolfe Center of the Art. Tickets are available for purchase online from the BGSU Arts Box Office or by calling 419-372-8171. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations are asked to call 419-372-8495 prior to the show.
A senior, Hahn has danced in every dance concert since arriving on campus. That included a year of virtual performances.
“Last year we were able to do two livestreamed shows,” she said. “But it was a challenge to find space to dance and to dance fully with partners or in groups or with masks on. There were a lot of restraints with the dance, but now we’re live. Some dancers can be unmasked. We can do partner stuff. It feels so much like live dance and live theater. … It’s the best.”
Hahn will dance in four of the seven pieces on the 40-minute-long program.
That includes a range of styles, including tap, contemporary and modern numbers.
Hahn, who started dancing at 2, said she’s always performed in a variety of styles.
In “Alight” includes her working with noted dancer and choreographer Tammy Metz Starr.
The opening piece Starr’s “Orange Colored Liquid,” Hahn said, “is kind of about how we’re all in this together in this great big world. Despite the challenges that COVID has brought upon us, despite all our differences, despite all the changes we face, we’re all together.”
The movements are set against a soundtrack from The Books that uses the staid narration of old inspirational tapes. Later she performs with Starr to the music of Elton John played on what sounds like a toy piano. “While You’re in the World” is a sequel to a piece performed last spring about an elderly woman and a cat. Now the woman is at home with her memories and her cat – a puppet operated by Hahn. The cat has its own secret life, a cat friend who appears at the window. Hahn waltzes for a bit with Starr as the old woman recalls those people she has lost.
That’s followed by another piece about aging, though seen through the lens of a younger person. Makenzie Stephens performed a solo dance, which she choreographed, to Billie Eilish’s “Getting Older.”
Madeline Lindow also performs solo in a piece choreographed by Colleen Murphy, who coordinates the BGSU dance program, to Tove Styrke’s “Say My Name.”
That desire to have true feelings spoken aloud is picked up later by “Say You Love Me” with music by Jessie Ware and choreographed by Adrienne Ansel and the dancers – Mae LaBelle, Emily Richie, Katrina Staup, and Sky Yang – who swirl about in red dresses.
Ansel also worked with the dancers n “Dive” by Ed Sheeran. Murphy filmed the piece in the majestic lobby of the Wolfe Center using the grand staircase as another performer.
The program ends as most BGSU dance do with an explosion of tap choreographed by Murphy to George Ezra’s traveling song “Shotgun.”
And Hahn is right there with Emma Brown, Madelyn Huzak, Leah Lattanzi, Lindow, Claire Pachiano, Stephens, and Regina Wolf. Other dancers performing in the show are: Samson Akanni, Alexa Burak, Joseph Galati, Kate Hans, Nicole Line, Laila May, Elizabeth Mills, Molly Moreland, and Elizabeth Panas.
Asked what she plans to do after her graduation next spring, Hahn said she wants to continue to dance, and act and sing. “Performance is where my heart lies.”
