Dickinson College Brings Pressing Issues Onstage With Freshworks 2019
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Environmentalism, racism, #IBelieveHer, universal experiences: Freshworks has it all and more
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
Eight student-choreographers draw inspiration from environmental science, social science, racism, the #MeToo movement and more in original works they’ll premiere during the 2019 Freshworks concert. The annual event highlights senior capstone projects by dance majors and work arising from Director of Dance Sarah Skaggs’ Applied Choreography class.
Opening Friday, April 26, at 7 p.m. in Mathers Theatre, Holland Union Building, Freshworks continues Saturday, April 27 (7 p.m.), and Sunday, April 28 (2 p.m.). Tickets are $7, or $5 with student ID.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
The concert opens with “Deconstruct, Rearrange, Evolve,” by Molly Diggins ’21 (undeclared), a ballet dancer who seeks to challenge stereotypical notions of ballet.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Drawing inspiration from the paintings of Julie Mehretu, student-choreographer Erin Hogan ’19 (educational studies) communicates a message of unity while portraying the systems and routines we share.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Spurred by Christine Blasey Ford’s 2018 address to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Madison Mehlman ’21 (sociology, dance) created a work that declares: “I believe her, and you should too” and finds solidarity with all who survived sexual assault.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Sarah Scarbrough ’21 (psychology, dance) finds hope in community in “Aftermath,” a work she dedicates to the memory of the brother of a friend.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Emily McFerran ’21 is a double major in biochemistry & molecular biology and dance who combines her right- and left-brainpower in “Forbidden Friendship,” a work that explores the relationships between humans and nature, and between art and science.
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
How do we share our emotions, and what do we keep to ourselves? That’s the overriding question in Jadyn Brick 21's (undeclared) work, “Release.”
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
Brick and Armando Moreno ’20 (theatre arts) teamed up to both choreograph the emotion-infused “Armando’s Piece.”
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds '71.
The concert closes with Briona Hawkins ’19’s powerful “The Promised Land,” a work that portrays deeply entrenched racism in America. “ ‘Promised Land’ seeks to narrate the feelings of people of color, the problems people of color face together, and tell the current state of where we are with racism in America,” Hawkins (educational studies) writes in the concert program, adding, “Do something small, do something big, just do something that changes this current complicit state of racism we are in and that helps to cease it without bringing harm to anyone.”
DTG is under the direction of Sarah Skaggs, director of the dance program, with assistance from Erin Crawley-Woods, visiting assistant professor of dance. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling the Mathers Theatre Box Office, 717-245-1327.
View photos from previous DTG performances:
- 2018: “Freshworks Brings New Choreographic Work Onstage”
- 2017: “The Mind-Body Muse”
- 2016: “A New Way of Knowing”
- 2015: “As They Rise”
- 2014: “Getting Fresh in Public”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published April 25, 2019