Hello all!
School started last week and we jumped RIGHT in. This weekend is the first concert of the year, The New Dance Festival. Every fall the JMU dance faculty presents new work and brings in a guest artist and their company to perform as well.

This year we brought in DC-based Daniel Burkholder/The Playground to present their ever-evolving work, "My Ocean is Never Blue". It explores how we relate to water; how it's in our bodies, where it is in abundance and where it is scarce, how water reaches some but not others, etc. It's a wonderful work of art that incorporates props, video, and text along with a sound score that immerses you in the concept. It's essentially 50% a structured improv but the company has been working on this project for 3 years. With its evolving nature, it is slightly different every time it is performed because the number of dancers change. This year they auditioned and selected 6 or 7 JMU dancers to be a part of it. If it's ever going to be performed near where you live, I would definitely recommend seeing it!

The Virginia Repertory Dance Company (JMU's pre-professional dance company, of which I am a member) traditionally does a residency with the artist that comes for NDF and we started ours with Daniel yesterday. He enjoys communicating big ideas in pieces (like 'Ocean' being about water) and is creating a piece for us dealing with immigration and migration. Yesterday we broke that down a little farther and started with the concept of home. We did several improvisational exercises, learned a few phrases of material, and spent the last hour experimenting with contact improv and weight bearing. Truly amazing!! The ways that a person can lift another person are endless and oftentimes aren't about muscular strength at all. If you use momentum and create an appropriate shelf or surface that can easily take weight, your partner is off the ground instantly with little strain on you.

After just one day of working with Daniel, I have a clear image and idea of the theme and feeling the piece has and gives out to the audience. Today we begin piecing those phrases together and I can't WAIT to see where he takes us artistically. :)
= K =