Thesis Dance This Weekend: Spotlight on Sarah Ashkin ‘11

Spring Senior Thesis Dance Concert
Photo by Lindsay Keys

Center for the Arts Intern Lucy Strother ’11 interviews dance thesis choreographer Sarah Ashkin ’11 in anticipation of this weekend’s Spring Senior Thesis Dance Concert performances.

This Thursday through Saturday, senior dance majors will showcase their choreography at the Spring Senior Thesis Dance Concert performances. I asked senior dance major Sarah Ashkin for some more information about the concerts and her featured work, Dismantle.

LS: Have the dance majors been giving and receiving feedback from each other all semester, or will this be the first time you see each other’s work?

SA: There is one thesis showing before the performance, where all the senior majors and faculty offer feedback for the works in progress.  By the time we get to the show, the pieces have usually changed drastically, sometimes based on the feedback and other times because the process of making art takes us on many detours. It’s tough to have spring break interrupting the process, so a lot of extra finesse goes into these last weeks.

LS: What themes have influenced and inspired your dance, Dismantle?

SA: Dismantle has been a dance research into the body of the capitalist worker, an investigation of how all of our bodies are greatly affected by the work environment of “produce, produce, produce.”   The body is literally maimed and forgotten in this process of “mind over matter” to meet the deadline.  My dancers and I have explored how to create the “factory body” and how to dismantle it.  However, this is just one narrative that can be read from the piece, and I am open and interested to hear any others from witnesses.

LS: How does Dismantle relate to your piece from fall semester and to the research component of your thesis?

SA: Last semester my piece Soft Catapult was interested in the different ways tension and release play out in public and private spaces.  It was a much more open and abstract collage of images than Dismantle, which I consider to be my most linear work.

Both pieces were spawned from my thesis research in what I am calling Somatic Cultural Praxis; in other words, those places and times in our lives where the connection between mind, body, and spirit is cultivated and expressed.  I see my dances as embodied research into how somatic praxis can be uniquely crafted in each group of dancers that I work with, and how we can present our inner findings in a public art setting.

LS: Why are you looking forward to the performances this weekend?

SA: I am most excited to have my little sister come see the show.  She hasn’t seen any of my work since I have been in college, and to finally show her what it is that I do, and hopefully impart to her why I believe dance is so important, will be really special.  But it is going to be a very bittersweet weekend.   The support that Wesleyan shows for student dance is really incredible. I am going to have to look long and hard to find anything as nurturing and challenging.

Spring Senior Thesis Dance Concert
Thursday, March 31 – Saturday, April 2, 8pm
Patricelli ’92 Theater
$4 Wesleyan students, $5 all others

Viver Brasil performances to feature sacred and secular Brazilian dance, capoeira, and percussion

An interview with Eric Galm (Ph.D.’04)  by Center for the Arts Intern and Music Major Lucia Strother ’11

In anticipation of this weekend’s upcoming performances by Viver Brasil, I spoke with Eric Galm, Wesleyan graduate and professor of music and ethnomusicology at Trinity College. Galm is an expert in Brazilian music, and provided some valuable background information for Friday and Saturday’s performances.

Viver Brasil
Photo by Jorge Vismara

A large portion of Brazilian music and dance has emerged from the music and dance of the African diaspora, and in Brazil, music and dance are virtually inseparable. Eric highlighted two categories of Brazilian tradition that illustrate this connection and will be represented in this weekend’s performances. Sacred music and dancing, known as candomblé, expresses African-derived religion that is still found in Brazil. There is also a lot of African-derived social dancing, generally known as batuque (the generic label applied by the Portuguese during early years in Brazil).

Later, the samba emerged through a mix of European dance styles and variants of these African dances, and is now the most popular form of music and dance in Brazil. Samba and its accompanying music was popularized in the 1930s, when dictator Getúlio Vargas made it the “official dance” of Brazil in an attempt to unify the regionally segmented nation.

Viver Brasil’s performance this weekend will extract motifs, phrases and elements from these traditional forms, and transpose them to the stage using the choreography and storytelling of modern dance. Eric previewed the program of Viver Brasil’s performance and identified that the first half will be based on sacred dance forms, while the second half will feature several types of secular dance.

In the first half, dances will invoke specific deities from Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. Eric elaborated on the way the religious storytelling is incorporated in Brazilian music and dance:

“Each of the spirits have their own set of songs and musical rhythms. For example, Xango is the god of thunder and guardian of the drums. He’s represented by the colors red and white, and dances with a double-headed hatchet or axe. There are a certain set of markers that identify him, and a strict set of songs and rhythms that make up his music.”

Therefore, anyone steeped in these religious expressions would be able to identify a particular deity and follow the storyline.

Each of the secular traditions that will be featured in the performance’s second half has its own extensive body of work with songs to choose from and adapt to the stage. One piece, In Motion, will feature capoeira, an “Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance game.” Eric mentioned that he has seen other modern dance representations of capoeira and been disappointed by the decision of those companies to eliminate the one-on-one, combat element that is so central to the art.

Audiences should expect a lot of percussion, much of it improvised. Sometimes, as in the case of the berimbau, a one-stringed percussion instrument, the percussion will actually inform the dancers’ movement. The music will also feature female vocalists and melodic instruments like flute or saxophone. I’m excited to see the variety these performances will offer, and happy to have the opportunity to experience a category of world music that is under-represented at Wesleyan.

Friday, March 25 & Saturday, March 26, 8pm
Pre-performance talk by Debra Cash in the CFA Hall at 7:15pm before the Friday performance
CFA Theater
$23 general public, $19 seniors, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students, $8 Wesleyan students

Three in One: A Celebration of Dance at Wesleyan

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company

This Saturday, we welcome three exceptional dance companies to the Center for the Arts Theater. For those who have been coming to the Breaking Ground Dance Series, you’ll remember that in 2004, we commissioned Ronald K. Brown/Evidence’s Come Ye, set to and inspired by the music of Nina Simone. In 2007, we presented the world premiere of One Shot, an evening-length work inspired by photographs of Pittsburgh native Charles “Teenie” Harris.  He was known as “One Shot” because whenever he was given a photo assignment, it only took him one shot to get “the” picture. This Saturday, Brown returns to teach a master class in the afternoon and that evening, his company will perform excerpts of One Shot, as well as Ife/My Heart.  Ife/My Heart was created in 2005 for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and draws on themes of faith and inspiration.

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet will follow, presenting a program of duets choreographed by George Balanchine. The Suzanne Farrell Ballet has been the Kennedy Center‘s own ballet company, housed in Washington, D.C. since 2001. The company exists to realize the vision of Artistic Director Suzanne Farrell, with over 30 ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Maurice Béjart in its repertoire.

Gallim Dance
Gallim Dance

Finally, the Center for the Arts is delighted to be awarding the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award to Andrea Miller, artistic director of Gallim Dance. Wesleyan has a long history with Miller: when Andrea was a student at Juilliard (and home for the weekend in Branford where her mother lives), she took classes at DanceMasters. Little did we know then that she would grow up to be an acclaimed choreographer!  After Andrea graduated from Juilliard, she went to Israel to dance with Ohad Naharin’s Ensemble Batsheva, and a few years later returned to New York to develop her choreographic work and to found Gallim. In just four years, the company has distinguished itself for its innovation and virtuosity. On Saturday, the company will present excerpts from I Can See Myself In Your Pupil, the work they presented to rave reviews this past June at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

Please join us to celebrate the breadth and wonder of dance at the twelfth annual DanceMasters Weekend!

DanceMasters Showcase Performance
Saturday, March 5, 8pm
CFA Theater

Tickets: $25 general public; $19 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $8 Wesleyan students

Click here for more information about the DanceMasters master classes

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts