The Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago provided the students as well as outside artists an opportunity to learn and grow with two days of classes, seminars, presentations and performances including presenters Shireen Dickson, Sarah Marks Minisohn and Silvia Garzarella, Kaleena Miller and more on Thursday September 19, and performances featuring some of Columbia's faculty including Darrell Jones, Lisa Gonzales, Dardi McGinley-Gallivan, and Kelsa Rieger-Haywood and more on Friday September 20, 2024. Through appearances from alumni, artists from the community, and more, participants truly were able to gather much knowledge.
This year's symposium was built around the theme of embodying rhythm and the day of the symposium filled the Dance Center with lots of energy and excitement. Something that we are told a lot as dancers is to find your own rhythm within you. Be able to feel the rhythm you are given in yourself. Finding your personal rhythm allows you to gain comfort in your movement and enhance your performance quality and connection to dance. The symposium really emphasized how you can grow rhythm with other people and in big groups. This creates a force of energy you feel within yourself and with others around you - a truly special environment. This is exactly what the theater felt like when everyone was up and finding rhythm together.
After Shireen Dickson presented during the Traditions session, she had everyone stand up and move together. She played different music telling us to find the rhythm, and everyone was supporting each other. This was the most memorable part of the day for me, dancing with my peers, smiles on everyone's faces and all having the common goal to let our bodies move to the music and with each other to find rhythm.
My perspective on what can have rhythm was changed by Sarah Marks Minisohn and Silvia Garzarella. They presented on an exploration they did on imprinted layers of fossils in La Maiella in a small village called Pennapiedimonte in Italy. Sarah, Silvia and others explored how: to be human, to be the mountain and to be a human again using the people of the village, animals, rocks, light and other surroundings to discover this. The name of this site specific work they created was Fossil(s)core, and it allowed me to see the ability to find rhythm in more than just music, my movement and others.
The definition of rhythm as the idea of a pattern in sound or movement seems to be simple, but to artists it goes far beyond that. In dance there are so many layers and ideas on how to embody rhythm, and one's perspective on it is always changing. With wonderful presentations about the tradition and history of rhythm from different experiences, personal understandings, and cultures, I was able to unlock new ideas and grow my previous ideas of what embodying rhythm can mean.
Banner Photo: TRADITIONS Symposium Session “American Rhythmic Traditions: Continuity, Connection and Community" by Shireen Dickson (left to right), Mia Cadet, Amanda Canino, Ashly Genchi, Rhianna Young, Sophie Daker. Photo by Julie Lucas.
