We invited a few students to reflect on their experience of the What is Contemporary? Symposium, the fall 2025 edition of this annual gathering.
Erica Jones
After experiencing the “What is Contemporary Dance” symposium, I left with a broader view of what used to be a complex question for me. What helped me to interpret my own understanding of contemporary dance is observing the individuality of each creative practice of the dance form. Exploring sexuality/queerness with Tim Tsang, diving deep into historical context with Jasmine Hearn, combining poetry with dance with Maya Odim, and the creativeness of solo work done by Zachary Nicol conveying African diasporic research all helped me to get a clearer view of how contemporary dance does not only have one meaning or style. Dr. Ayo Walker also supported the question with her explanation of surrounding identity.: “Our individual identities matter, just as well as our identities as collective.” - Dr. Ayo Walker.
Zachary Nicol, photo by Meg T. Noe.
Sophie Daker
This year's symposium, “What is Contemporary Dance?” was a great experience. I was able to take away new information to help my own thoughts on what contemporary dance is. A speaker that really stood out to me was Nejla Yatkin and her session on living rituals. Yatkin uses patterns in nature and middle Eastern dance traditions to explore movement. Five natural patterns Yatkin focuses on in the body include breath, circle, lines, curves and spirals. To embody theses, she reminds us that our body movement comes from the earth; each pattern is a part of nature.
Michael Landez presentation on imaging you are in rehearsal was something that I have thought about many times before when learning rep from companies. He talked about how every work that has been done and re-done is contemporary. No matter how exact a choreographer works to make a dance the same as the first time it went on the stage, it will always be different. This is a beautiful thing and what I think is contemporary is on the stage.
Overall, the symposium this year was a very insightful, wonderful environment and filled with intelligent artists.
Timothy Tsang, photo by William Frederking.
