Getting Fresh in Public
Photo by Pierce Bounds '71.
Annual dance concert offers young women's perspectives with interdisciplinary twists
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
Nine student choreographers find voice through movement during the 2014 Freshworks dance concert. For seniors Emily Keating (theatre arts and English) and Sydney Moffat (theatre arts and music), the concert offers a chance to showcase what they’ve learned throughout their four years at Dickinson, while for rising theatre-arts majors Courtney Meyer ’15 and Faith Wilwerding ’16 as well as double majors Marissa Mitchell ’16 (theatre arts and neuroscience) and Anastasia Putri ’16 (theatre arts and anthropology), it’s an opportunity to continue to strengthen their chops.
Performed by the Dance Theatre Group (DTG), the concert presents the culmination of work they completed in Director of Dance Sarah Skaggs’ applied-choreography class this spring.
“The students felt compelled to draw from their experiences and concerns as young women and as college students,” Skaggs writes in the program’s director’s notes. “The issues … include the female body image and the judgment of the male gaze, the chokehold of expectations, the clash of the natural and the artificial, transnational identity, liminal spaces, masks and coming-of-age.”
Many of the choreographers took a highly interdisciplinary approach. DTG president Jillian Dunbar’14 (biochemistry & molecular biology) and Mitchell incorporate a spirit of inquiry into their narratives. Molly Leach ’14 (art & art history and French), focuses on societal constraints as well as on form, while Melissa O'Sickey ’14 (history) drew inspiration from her experiences studying in England last year.
Freshworks opens Friday, April 25 (8 p.m.), and continues Saturday, April 26 (8 p.m.), and Sunday, April 27 (2 p.m.). All shows are in Mathers Theatre (Holland Union Building). Regular-admission tickets are $7; advance-purchase student tickets are $5. For more information, see Season at a Glance.
Learn more:
Published April 25, 2014