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Dances tell stories
 Media Credit: Matthew Kaster Erin Regan dances the opening performance, �When Contemporary Meets Tradition,� to Mondo Beat by Pharos Saunders. The celebration was to commemorate National Women�s History Month and was put on by the SCSU Women�s Center and the Department of Theater, Film Studies and Dance.
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A sign of spring is seeing the dance performance at SCSU Tuesday.
Young women from the SCSU Repertory Dance Theater sowed seeds of wonder, seeds of sensation.
The "crops" that are harvested to make these seeds of movement � the dancers � are choreography, music, lighting, costume and the stories that inspire all of these.
Appreciate Fred Yiran, who created the "stories" that make these seeds or dances bud.
Carved wooden statues, colorful paintings and clay pottery, which were stationed in the lobby of Kimberly A. Ritche Auditorium, are the stories behind these dances.
Carving a tree trunk into a creature with animal and human peculiarities is a creation story.
Rossi Turner of the Performing Arts High School of Nashville and Debra Leigh, SCSU dance professor listened to Yiran's "story," expressing it to movement, calling it "When Contemporary Meets Tradition."
And like the carved wooden bust, that can't be pigeonholed as animal or human being, the dancers, Melissa Bethke, Shannon Hahner, Angela Haugejorden, Cassandra Kentzelman, Sarah J. Klein, Sunita Maier, Erin Regan and Amanda Swift writhe, recoil, twist and squirm to the music of Pharos Saunders and Mondo Beat.
Another dance number, "One Flesh," brings the audience into Willy Wonka land in the laboratory of the Oompas. With music by Sweet Honey and the Rock, Leigh gives a mystic yet absolute authority of the laboratory setting in the dance arrangement with the help of David Borron on lighting.
A dance arrangement that was quite hilarious depicted the Russian Navy by choreographer Neysian Tobak � "Sailor's Dance."
Whether it was lining up for drill order, flipping flapjacks, cleaning toilets, ironing the sailor outfits or sweeping floors, these Russian sailin' gals did it all on a ship and were happy doing it.
Sailors do come in all shapes and sizes.
The dance arrangement, "Soaring Freedom," was the epitome of polarity. As much as Desiree Leigh was graceful, Jerome Barnes was sharp and choppy.
Both from Golden Valley in the Perpich Center for Arts Education's dance program, they were the dancers and also the choreographers of the piece.
Before the performance, Barnes looked at Yiran's drawings of Martin Luther King, Jr. in African traditional and American contemporary clothing. "The artwork gave me the push (to perform)," Barnes said.
Explaining the dance arrangement, Barnes said, "She (Leigh) portrayed a new beginning." His own angular movements depicted working in the fields as the slaves did long ago, said Barnes.
Besides the dance numbers mentioned, others performed such as "Body And Soul," "I Come From A Light," "Blessings," "Still Born," "Strange Fruit" and "Awakening Souls," nourished the audience with a bliss of contentment.
Tom Meyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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