Student-run dance concert spotlights storytelling through movement
Junior Film and Journalism major William Blakley reviews the annual Musical Theatre Dance Concert at the Dance Center.
On Thursday, Feb. 19 The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago erupted with applause as neon-colored ‘80s-teens, classically dressed waiters, and a student dressed as Jesus bowed on stage following an explosive night of dancing.
The third annual concert is a student-led event in which performers independently direct, produce, choreograph and perform numbers from musical theatre of their choice.
Directed by junior musical theatre student Jadyn Hogue, this year’s program aimed to tell a cohesive story through its choreography, showing how dance can communicate deeper narrative as well as emotion.
“We focus a lot on acting because that is a part of theatre, but it’s not always spoken about with dance,” said Hogue. “So we tried to have an element of using technique and movement, but also using storytelling in their faces and in their concepts.”
This thematic mission is presented in a unique take on the classic song from “West Side Story,” “Cool,” written by Leonard Bernstein, taking the song’s lyrics from the streets of Manhattan into the lab of an ensemble of Doctor Frankenstein-esque mad scientists.
This was a particular favorite of first-year musical theatre student Jose Morales, who looked forward to seeing how people would react to the radical reimagining of the classic show tune, partially due to the dramatic lighting they use in the scene.
“We’ve been playing with lights a lot, and it’s something that we didn’t get to really see until we’re in the space because we had our dance. Being in the Dance Center has changed everything. We’re working off of the sequence lighting, but also our own handheld lights,” he said.
In these performances, while there is dialogue and song lyrics present, the student dancers are challenged to communicate completely with their movements and facial expressions, the latter often being an overlooked but important part of conveying a story through dance…
banner photo: Amelia Baird for The Columbia Chronicle.
