Goblins and ghouls may be grooving in the streets as the annual Halloween celebration takes over downtown Madison this weekend, but the real dance party will erupt when birds in flight, human slinkies and marching soldiers take to the stage of Lathrop Hall's Margaret H'Doubler Performance Space Oct. 26 through 28.
"Body 'n Sole," the fall performance of the UW Dance Program, will showcase seven new works by award-winning student choreographers, featuring three solo displays, three duets and one group number.
According to Marlene Skog, concert coordinator and assistant faculty associate in the dance department, each performer included in the recital is selected by a panel of faculty judges but from that point forward, the students develop the creative concepts of their pieces on their own.
"The students create their own work with their own ideas and their own themes that they have come up with," Skog says. "To be able to express that means a great deal to them, that they can communicate with the audience."
In September, the performers, many of whom have attended such prestigious programs as the Tisch School of Arts at New York University, Parsons Dance in New York and Bill Evans Dance Workshop in Washington, also selected a faculty mentor to serve as a "critical third eye" responsible evaluating and steering their performance in the direction best suited for their personalities.
"Within the modern dance genre, there are so many different ways to work," Skog says. "Since modern dance is really a personal-based (art), it depends on the temperament and the background of the particular choreographer as to how she expresses herself."
In the case of UW junior Nicole Roerick, this personal expression began as a class assignment. Roerick, who is featured in a duet performance with junior Emily Miller as well as a solo, first drew choreographic influence for her individual piece from the lines of the anti-war poem, "War is a Wonderful Thing," during a composition class and added onto the piece for her "Body 'n Sole" performance.
"Originally, in the first part, I took a line from the poem and tried to make it a movement and then the second part is about death, so it's just about being out of control in some parts," Roerick says of the routine, which allows her to express her passion against the war in Iraq.
"I'm strongly opposed to what's happening, so it's sort of a 'if you're really opposed to something, you perform how you feel' sort of thing," she says.
Senior Ashley Johnson also drew on her emotions for inspiration and allowed them to take the creative reigns in a dramatic solo piece where she engages in war with herself.
"I have a lot of anxiety. It started off as this really light piece with different music, and it just kind of transformed itself, which makes sense to me because anxiety is not light," Johnson says.
As she prepares for the weekend performances, Johnson says she's most concerned about the appearance of her singular dance number.
"I think you always have to wonder, 'What the heck does this look like?' Especially because I can't see myself, and if I am getting the point across," she says. "I have to think about what it all means to me and try to put it to movement."
For Minnesota native Heidi Adams and her partner and roommate Lauren Rosenstein, the creative process was much more light-hearted. The synchronized pair, who sport dramatic make-up and wild, feather-like hair in their dance titled "Vireo" initially dreamed up their routine during a three-week summer workshop in Utah and allowed their imaginations to soar.
"We had to do a study on smooth movement and from that we got this really birdlike image," Adams says. "From that it just grew into this sculptural image piece about the discovery of flight and trying to let go and fly."
Aside from the wonders of aviation, the diverse show will also feature "Show 'n Tell" a performance set to a montage of 1960s television commercials from Ajax to Pepsi, Courtney Rolnick's "Blue Work," set to the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, as well as "When Our Soles Meet," featuring the fancy footwork of senior Laura Katzman and UW-alumna Laura Zimmerman.
"Body 'n Sole" will be held Oct. 26-28 at 8 p.m. at the Margaret H'Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall. Admission is $5 for students and $8 for the general public.
