Hope, despair, community and resilience are just some of the themes explored in Elon University’s spring dance concert titled “Roots and Horizons.”
Directed by assistant professor of dance, Keshia Gee, the concert will feature works from six choreographers, including Elon faculty and guest artists. Gee declined an interview with Elon News Network.
Junior dance major, Noah Macam, will dance in two pieces for the concert. The first piece, choreographed by assistant professor Angelica Kankam, Macam described as a big celebration of culture.
“There’s this idea of coming back to get your people, coming back to get your tribe, and just coming back to get your community,” Macam said. “It’s super grounding and honestly feels like a dance circle.”
Macam started learning the nearly 15-minute-long piece over Winter Term, where he said the process was intense but extremely collaborative. According to Macam, the piece kept growing and growing as Kankam and the other dancers found more to say through their movements and phrasing.
Macam said this concert is special because it blends dance styles from different cultures and it allows people’s experiences to shine through the choreography.
“It’s an amalgamation of everything coming together,” Macam said.
Macam is also dancing in a piece called “Quiet Gravity,” choreographed by professor Jiwon Ha.
Ha said her piece is a reflection of the despair she feels at the current state of the world, but also the hope that it will get better with each generation.
“I try to not to be political with art, but at the same time, art has always been political,” Ha said. “I’m trying to walk that line and find that balance.”
Ha said her Korean culture informed the choreography of the piece. She said she tried to blend her Korean style with more Western dance styles, such as ballet, to highlight the strengths of her dancers. Ha said the Korean style represents the roots and the gravity of the piece, and the ballet represents the horizon and the hope she has for the future.
Macam said Ha’s piece features a lot of build and release, and intricate choreography.
“It’s really intense emotional moments with really detailed and intense movements, which is a challenge,” Macam said. “But all these details make her pieces look great.”
Although her choreography is intentional and specific, Ha said she doesn’t want the audience to overanalyze the movements. Instead, she said she wants them to focus on their emotions and how they feel when watching her work.
“The biggest beauty of a dance performance is that we cannot replay or go back and see the piece again,” Ha said. “The life happens onstage, so I really want audiences to just enjoy the moment of seeing all dancers moving together.”
Similarly, choreographer and assistant professor Lisa Hines said she is focused on emotions and the state of the world in her piece titled “Bodies that Refuse to Freeze.”
She said this piece was a way to express her feelings regarding the detention of immigrants in the current political climate.
“I wanted to ask the question, as a community and as a culture, how do we stand in our right to be human and our right to coexist equally,” Hines said. “It's not so much a piece about defeat as it is resiliency.”
Hines said “Roots and Horizons” is the perfect way to represent this topic because she interprets the horizon as the persistence of culture. She said she is incorporating choreography from dance styles with a deep cultural history, such as merengue. Hines said the style, initially designed to suppress, later became a dance of strength celebrated in Latin American culture.
“All of the travesties in our history have given us roots so we can rise,” Hines said. “It’s hard to verbalize it, but we can show you through our bodies.”
Hines said everyone’s pieces in the concert hold some form of cultural representation. She said she hopes audiences see the performances as a current reflection of what is happening in the world and not to detach from it.
“I'm being emotionally provoked and out comes this art,” Hines said. “In two, three, or five years, I don't want to forget how this current climate made me feel. I don't want to forget how I felt in this moment, because then I fear I'll lose my activism and my own voice.”
“Roots and Horizons” will run in McCrary Theatre with evening shows at 7:30 p.m. March 6 and 7, as well as matinee shows at 2 p.m. March 7 and 8. Tickets are available on the Elon Performing Arts website.