By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
It’s hard not to view the Spring Dance Concert at Bowling Green State University through the lens of the pandemic. After all, the concert begins with a dance set to Matt Maeson’s downhearted ballad “Tribulation.”
And Makenzie Detrick, Mae LaBelle, Laila May, Makenzie Stephens dancing to Adrienne Ansel’s choreography set the concert and the lyrics of the song in motion.
The performance, directed by Colleen Murphy with light design by Steve Boone and sound design by Jason Walton, will be livestreamed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Links to the concert streamed over Vimeo can be found at bgsu.edu/arts. The event will only be available during the livestreaming.
A couple of the participants who are featured in the Dancing with Parkinson’s segment speak directly to the pandemic, and how they can feel confined by it. Dancing whether in person or over Zoom helps break through that as well as helping them keep moving, which is essential therapy for their condition. The program is led by Tammy Metz Starr and is offered through the Wood County Committee on Aging. Call (419) 353-5661 for information.
The concert is structured around alternating filmed and live segments on the stage of the Donnell Theatre. This reflects the various ways the dancers – all arts students, all students, really – have had to adjust to the pandemic.
The dances presented live featured fewer dancers, including solos by Joseph Galati, who choreographed Hayd’s “Changes” and Makenzie Stephens who choreographed her piece to Kan Wakan’s “I would.” Galati offered vigorous dance about confronting the inevitable and unexplainable shifts in life. Stephens’ work, set against a dark forest background, was more delicate, her movements puppet-like at times.
Between them was haunting music of Shawn James choreographed by Ansel. The piece featured dancers Emmy Adkins, Ansel, Joseph Galati, Kayleigh Hahn, Kate Hans, Jenna Kull, Claire Pachiano, Elizabeth Panas, Morgan Prachar, Emily Ritchie, Regina Wolf, and Sydney Yavitch .
The mood shifts with a signature tap dance routine by Colleen Murphy. Set to Max Frost’s “Good Morning,” the piece starts inside the Heskett Dance Studio inside the Wolfe Center and moves through the halls and then outside expanding the space and bringing in more and more dancers – Olivia Cotterman, Alyx Fisher, Lucy Greig, Kayleigh Hahn, Madelyn Huzyak, Claire Pachiano, Kelsey Schaller, Megan Sycks, and Regina Wolf. The piece throbs with a sense of exhilaration as we move beyond the confines of COVID.
The mood shifts for Starr’s choreography with shadow puppets created by Bonnie Kim and the ethereal sounds of Namu Reyoung. The piece, inspired by traditional Korean culture, has dancers Mae LaBelle and Emily Ritchie echoing the action of what appears to be a folk tale, playing out on the screens behind them.
Then Starr herself takes center stage in the delicate role of a child-like character who makes” Fast Friends” with a stray cat – a puppet operated by Kayleigh Hahn. The piece, as with so much of Starr’s acclaimed work, finds poetry in everyday movement.
The concert that started with “Tribulation” ends joyously with more tapping. Allison Edwards, Kelsey Schaller, and Megan Sycks dance to “I Can See Clearly Now” in choreography by Murphy, and Elizabeth Halsey adds a solo tap improvisation on the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” The energy she invests in the ballad lifts it to another level providing feelings of uplift and hope so many of us crave right about now.
