Valencia Spring Dance Concert

Paula Villalon Ciena

Campus Article

March 30, 2015

Modern dance has never had boundaries when it comes to dancers expressing what they want.  The Valencia Spring Dance Concert showed just that.  The event took place on March 27 and March 28, 2015 at the Performing Arts Center in the East Campus.  It showed how hard each of the dancers have worked to get to where they are.  There was a mixture of many feelings and cultures.  You could see the flow of the dancers and how they connected to each other and the music they danced to.

When interviewed, Dr. Suzanne Salapa, Chair of the Dance Department, was happy to share information about the rehearsal period for the last choreography that was performed. "Friday, November 21st they had spring concert auditions for the performance... As soon as finals are done, they all pile in their cars and go to this amazing artisan place near New Smyrna Beach and they're in residency that whole weekend," she said, "From all day Friday, all day Saturday and all day Sunday they rehearse and they learn the piece there... so they learned that piece in that quick weekend."

Suzanne Salapa, Head of Dance Department

The concert was divided into four parts, each one divided by a short intermission and choreographed by a guest artist and Valencia dance faculty.  The first was full of life; the dancers flowed across the stage with a mixture of different Latin rhythms.  The boys were very masculine yet flirtatious with the audience and other dancers.  The girls were coquettish, moving their hips in a Latin manner while still maintaining that modern dance feel.  Derrick Minter, a guest artist, who has performed with many recognized artists like Aretha Franklin and Maya and George Benson, choreographed this amazing ensemble piece.

After the first intermission, the dancers filled the stage while performing extraordinary lifts and creating different shapes with their bodies.  The piece was named Kaleidescape and the dancers each represented the loose colored objects that a kaleidoscope has inside of it.  The dancers worked together to make the audience feel as if they were looking through a kaleidoscope and looking at remarkable images.  They seemed to be connected when they repeated the same moves simultaneously while creating the images.  The performance was choreographed by Jun Kuribashi, who was a part of Pilobolus for ten years, and by the dancers themselves.  There was a short pause in between that signaled the next presentation was going to start.  The next presentation, named Rise Above, was a short solo piece also choreographed by Derrick Minter.  It was emotionally captivating, with a single spotlight on the dancer, who was surrounded by gentle clouds of smoke.  

The fourth piece that followed the second intermission was divided into seven parts, all of which were danced to country music.  The opening was hillbilly; it gave the audience the feeling of being in a small town in the south where everyone knew each other.  Following that was a country-western kind of dance, and it radiated a Texan feel and was extremely playful.  After all the excitement of the first two parts, the character of the southern belle was introduced in a solo piece danced by the student Daylan Sleva.  Her movements were smooth and innocent, while accompanied by a song about a mother singing her baby girl to sleep.  

The next part was a very playful and child-like all girl piece.  They all seemed to represent different living organisms that lived in harmony on the mountains, only to be thrown out of their home when man started the mountaintop removal.  The fifth part consisted of a solo piece performed by student Brittany Ortner.  Ortner’s movements imitated a person not in control of her body which went well with the song she danced to, “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, about a woman crazy in love with a man who doesn’t want her anymore.  Overall, the girls danced like cowgirls after a rodeo and were playful with the boys.  Valencia dance instructor Lesley Brasseux Rodgers assisted by Forrest Hershey and Brittany Ortner choreographed this whole piece.

The whole event was full of life and wonderful choreographies.  While watching the pieces, one could easily tell that the dancers were having fun and doing what they loved, which is a huge part of a performance itself.