Arts This Week: UVa Fall Dance Concert
By Sage Tanguay
Coco Ahn 00:00
The UVA Dance Department will host their Fall Dance Concert on November 21st through the 23rd at 8pm. For Arts This Week, we spoke to the Program Director Kim Brooks Mata.
Kim Brooks Mata 00:18
My name is Kim Brooks Mata, and I am the Head and Artistic Director of the Dance Program here at UVA. We have a show coming up Thursday, Friday and Saturday, November 21st through the 23rd at 8pm in the Culbreth Theatre. We would love to have people join us. There’s a wide variety of pieces. We have five student pieces; four live dances, one is a dance film that was just made this semester in our Screendance course. And then we have two faculty pieces, and one of the faculty pieces involves some community members as well.
Coco Ahn 00:49
We also spoke to two of the students whose work will feature in the show.
Emma Strebel 00:53
My name’s Emma Strebel, and I’m a fourth year. So this semester is my first time choreographing for the dance concert here. It’s been a really exciting process. It’s a big step up from just being a dancer. I think my piece has evolved a lot in terms of what I was initially picturing. You know, I’m a fourth year here at UVA, I’m about to start a whole new journey, so that’s been at the forefront of my mind. So I think my dance had a lot to do with like, that process of going through change in life, or and having to make decisions and what that process might feel like, or how you might experience that as someone, and the dance kind of transformed into how you kind of rely on the people around you.
So my dance has a lot to do with how my dancers interact with each other, how they might support each other throughout the entirety of the piece. It just kind of starts building and building, and there’s this like energy that grows and this lightness that comes out of it. So it’s kind of just supporting that, and like, you know you’re gonna get through this change, even though you might be hesitant or scared, like you’ll get to the end and you have the people around you to support you, or you can find that.
Emma Block 01:52
I’m Emma Block, and I’m a third year. I’m minoring in dance, majoring in anthropology and environmental thought and practice, but I grew up training in dance, and mostly western forms of dance, like ballet and modern. The Dance Program here, it’s so great, and it’s so small and lovely, and everyone’s supportive. The way I’m approaching this choreography is not as the quote, unquote “choreographer.” I’m not the sole person that’s responsible for this, like there are many other things that have led to this process, and I’m also relying on the creative minds of other individuals that are in the work and also outside of the work.
But it’s been it’s been great. I’ve been trying to kind of challenge all I’ve been taught about how dance performance should be. So I’ve been trying to challenge the fourth wall, playing with interdisciplinary forms as well. We’ve been recording our voices. Initially we had this idea of, like, including poetry, but when we recorded our voices saying poems, it just felt too performative. So I tried to get everyone to improvise. So I remember, like, late one night, I was just like, okay, like, I’m feeling something right now. I’m just gonna record on my phone and see what rolls out of my mouth.
We’ve been exploring themes of ancestry, remembrance, culture, cultural exchange. I’m a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Oklahoma, so a lot of the themes emerged from this interest in that native identity. For the other people in the piece, I wanted it to be extremely personal. So we have another person in the piece who is working within the African diaspora, and then someone else who is from Singapore. So we’re talking about the diaspora, displacement, different histories and those themes we kind of bring in.
Coco Ahn 03:38
Here’s Kim Brooks Mata.
Kim Brooks Mata 03:40
I have played with the idea of creating themes in the past, but I don’t typically do that. But in the process of working together and meeting weekly, the students are sharing their ideas of what they want to choreograph and where they’re headed, there’s always a thread I find, and in this one, it’s about connection and different forms of support and this kind of theme of being in relationship with: being in relationship with one another, being in relationship with the natural environment, built environments. They’re investigating things that they’re trying to process or acknowledge or work their way through in an embodied way. And so watching that unfold is really a wonderful thing for me as a creator. It’s exciting to see.
Coco Ahn 04:21
If someone has never attended a dance performance before, what can they expect?
Kim Brooks Mata 04:25
So oftentimes, what I’ll hear, because a lot of our works tend to be more modern or contemporary focused. Sometimes people will feel a little bit intimidated by coming in because they’re not sure what it’s supposed to mean. So I invite our audience to come in and experience it. Just allow it to wash over you, the different pieces, and if you’re able to approach them as you would, a poem, allow it to be a visual poem, if you would, and see what you take from it. I guarantee you there will be something for everybody within this concert. And as long as you’re open to that, that’s all we ask that you come in and share. And the celebration of this work that our students have put a lot of hours and time into. It’s a really strong concert. I hope people come!
The UVA Fall Dance Concert opens on Thursday November 21st at 8pm in the Culbreth Theatre. More information and tickets are available at drama.virginia.edu
Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu
