That night, during Doug Varone and Dancer’s Show & Tell, Julia Burrer described this same idea of momentum. One of our audience members asked during the Q&A how the dancers are able to dance so strong, grounded and forceful but also maintain a lightness and grace.  She explained that the momentum of the movement is what allows them to move with so much energy. Like a roller coaster there are moments of strength and force to get you to the top, but then there are down slopes, curves and loop-de-loops as well. It’s a rush to be caught in that exhilarating momentum.

All of our Young Dancers on their last day!

I think this a great reflection of our experiences at the young dancers workshop. Remembering the ups, downs, curves and loops of this experience seems like such a blur already. We were really caught in the momentum that is the festival, propelling ourselves from one class or event to the next.

And I hope that this momentum continues. That the ideas, concepts and dreams planted here continue to bloom as our students travel back home. And for those of us still at the festival, I hope that this momentum will advance us into a fruitful few weeks with the Professional Training Program.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

All our young dancer’s gathered around for a pre-show warm-up.

It was thrilling to see so much of what our teachers and counselors have been working on in classes and workshops show up in the works. I was especially impressed by the attention to partnering that was highlighted in almost every one of the pieces. So many of the works explored partnering and lifts with such bravery and care. I saw a lot of what Karl, Kendra and Nejla have been working on in their classes, having the students improvise using partnering scores. Rolling points of contact, counter balancing and using strong bases for partnering showed up over and over again.

Our students also bravely stepped into the weird and bizarre in many of the pieces. Dressing each other in thrift store clothing, contorting their faces and eating a whole tomato, were some of the more daring moments of the show. I loved watching our students hurl themselves into these weird situations on stage with great commitment and energy.

All shows must end with a dance party!

This show was a great way to bring the community together for one last time. In our hall meeting that evening, our students reflected upon things they liked best about this program. Each student noted different experiences but the sense of community at Bates is what was most valued. I am glad our students have a safe place to learn more about themselves and each other. This night was a true reflection of the amazing talents of our diverse group of young dancers.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

After watching an excerpt of Lux, Mr. Varone brought nine of our students on stage to demonstrate how he builds seemingly chaotic but immensely controlled architectural structures on stage. Mr. Varone placed the nine dancers in various poses across the stage, then led each of his dancers through this obstacle course of bodies, giving them different movement material. Dancers made different paths by diving under, pressing against, twirling around and manipulating their human obstacles. What was left once the obstacles were removed was an intricate phrase of human shape moving through the space. Like leaves blowing in the wind, momentum and architecture came alive.

Doug Varone brought nine young dancers to the stage during his demonstration to build an obstacle course for the dancers to move through.

In our hall meeting that evening, our students, counselors and faculty members discussed what they most enjoyed about the performance. One of our ballet instructors, Shonach Mirk-Robles noted that she was pleased that many of the concepts Doug Varone brought up during his lecture were ideas our teachers are introducing in classes. Varone cited musicality, vocabulary, architecture and humanity as his core concerns. Many of these foundational ideas are important to all the different instructors, performers, and dancers at the Festival. We have the pleasure of being completely immersed in these processes and ideas while here.

We also had fun discussing this idea of chaos in dance at our hall meeting. Some students were surprised by how simple Mr. Varone was able to make it look during his demonstration. In about 10 minutes he was able to make a luscious 20 second phrase using his obstacle course game. Our students were excited to learn the tools that were used to create such intricate looking work. We also began to dive into the aesthetics of the work. Did you like seeing this “organized chaos” on stage? What was challenging about it for you? Why do you think this idea is being used? I loved that our students were pushed to see something new and then articulate why they liked or disliked it.

The young dancers will have a chance to see the full performance of Doug Varone and Dancers on our last night of the workshop this Thursday. To purchase tickets to Thursday or Saturday’s shows visit the Bates Dance Festival website.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

Counselor Laquimah VanDunk leads students through their morning warm-up.

Our counselors are professional dancers that come from all over the country in order to work and dance at the festival all summer. Along with their more general duties at the dorm they also lead various workshops for the students, choreograph works for the works-in-progress showing and give advice on all things dance related. They are some of the best sources for information on injury prevention, choreography and dancing in the professional world.

An average day starts off by leading the morning warm-up in Chase Hall. All the counselors lead the warm-ups at some point and their styles range from gentle yoga to energetic cardio workouts. Counselors take classes with the students throughout the day as another source of help and guidance in the classroom. There is always a counselor in one of the classes to look out for our injured students and participate in class. Each day at lunch, dancers check in with their counselors about their injuries and general well being.

All 10 of our counselors at “Counselor Confessions” night. Students were able to ask their counselors questions about their lives and dance experiences.

After a full day of classes and evening performances or workshops, counselors lead hall meetings with their groups. Hall meetings are a chance for the students to ruminate on what they have learned that day. Each night the counselors ask a “go around question” which can be serious or silly. Giving the dancers a chance to let off steam or reflect upon their experiences.

Counselors are also in charge of all the student activities over the weekends. They plan workshops, like the site specific workshop held last weekend, and help coordinate trips like the one to Range Pond. These counselors are such a big part of what makes the Young Dancers Workshop an encouraging and safe place to learn. We are lucky to have their talents and energy!

Head Counselor, Mary Lachman leads a yoga workshop for the dancers.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

I have to admit I was worried that the tough subject matter in Oasis would be a barrier for our young dancers. Themes of human struggle, torture, democracy and freedom surrounding the middle east are explored extensively in the work. But the curiosity and enthusiasm in which the dancers have approached the work shows great maturity and understanding.

Nejla looks on as dancers improvise with partners in her Modern Repertory class. Students will perform an excerpt of her work during their final performance.

On Friday night, I had the opportunity to attend a hall meeting after the performance. These hall meetings are held each night in the dorm and give the students an opportunity to talk about their experiences from the day along with go over any information about the days ahead. The counselors urged the students to talk about specific moments in the work that stood out to them or surprised them. Our students noticed detailed moments about the lighting, costuming, symbolism and performance quality. As a group we were enamored with the beauty of the performers, the emotional depth they brought to the stage and the rich integration of so many elements into one performance. We debated over subjective ideas of tone and questioned different choices of design. Starting to open up the students to critical discourse about performance and choreography.

Getting our students to think about these elements along with discussing their opinions openly is just another tool we hope they can take home with them. As our students continue to work with Nejla this week in her Modern Repertory class I am certain they continue to dance, feel, ask and ruminate on the work in a new way.

Nejla leads the young dancers in an improvisation during her Show & Tell at the Theater.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

The morning started off with a combined ballet class taught by Shonach Mirk-Robles and Martha Tornay, then dove right into a modern dance class led by Heidi Henderson and Kendra Portier. Partnering was emphasized throughout the morning as students manipulated each others bodies and learned a tricky contact-emphasized combination.

Working with partners in Heidi Henderson and Kendra Portier’s combined modern class. (Click on photo for enlargement.)

That afternoon the dancers joined a music class led by four of our fantastic accompanists, Glen Fittin, Peter Jones, Carl Landa and Shamou. In this class dancers were given tools to practice their counting, tempo changes and accenting both as a group and individually. A large circle formed around the dance floor in Alumni to count off using voices. Students practiced finding individual rhythms along with finding group counts by stomping and clapping across the floor. This type of class is important for bridging our understanding of creating dance and creating music. Carl ended class by discussing what our accompanists are always trying to do when working with dancers. Focusing on the timbre, or the quality of music, they work to match the qualities they see in the bodies.

Stomping and clapping rhythms out in our music class with the accompanists.

The last class of the day brought a final sense of community to the space. Improvisation class led by Karl Rogers and Heidi Henderson stressed the importance of working together. Each task given forced the students to find a way to communicate, and more importantly, listen to each other using their bodies. Lining up in order by birthdate without any words spoken, proved to be a tricky task but required the students to turn their focus on for one last time that day. The most special part of class was watching groups of ten dancers lifting each other up into the air and taking them for a walk around the gym. Floating above the room you felt weightless, cared for and supported. What a great way to celebrate the midway point for the Young Dancers Workshop.

Flocking in groups and lifting each other up around the space. (Click on photo for enlargement.)

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

This question came back around yesterday, during Nejla Yatkin/NY2Dance’s Show & Tell lecture demonstration at Schaeffer Theatre. For Nejla, dance starts with love. She explained that growing up in Germany she practiced contemporary and modern dance that emphasized not how you are moving but why you are moving. She continues to ask this question in all of the work she builds.

Nejla draws everyone up onto the stage for an improvised dance.

Her newest work, Oasis tackles some big issues. Influenced by her experiences in Berlin during the Cold War, Nejla became interested in the revolutions taking place in the Middle East. Political systems breaking down and the struggle to find freedom reminded her of the demonstrations she grew up around in Germany.

After immersing herself in research she began to wonder what it was like for the women dealing with these issues. She felt their voices were lacking and wanted to bring their experiences to life. Drawn to the Persian love story Layla and Majnoon, a forerunner to Romeo and Juliet, she created a work that explores fear, loss, humanity and spirit.

One by one everyone was given a chance to dance on stage with the company.

While this work deals with a specific subject matter, it is the emotions conveyed that are universal. As the work has toured around the world, people have shared how much the themes of love, pain and revolution have resonated with them. Even the music, created by Maine-based Persian composer Shamou, melds sounds from classical Persian music along with European and African influences to create a global sounding score.

The evening closed with an invitation to the stage. Our young dancers, along with the Lewiston community, got up to move and improvise together. A true melding of arms, torsos and legs gave us a sense of connectivity at the end of the night. You can purchase tickets to this weekend’s show of Oasis on the BDF website.

Everyone ended up in the center dancing together!

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

The counselors started us off with a demo on the porch of Parker dormitory.

Within each group we started by talking about what “site-specific” means. Some of our dancers had performed in outdoor or unusual performance spaces before. But we talked about the difference between inserting movement into a space and creating movement inspired by the space. As the dance company PearsonWidrig Dance Theater describes site-specific dance, “working with the space as an active partner, we listen to what is asking to be framed in each particular site.”

The dancers started out by taking a walk through the space to find places, textures, sounds or ideas that interested them. Then they were given a few minutes to improvise within the space. Couches became spaces for upside-down dancers, the piano a place for noise, windowsills a frame for the the lines of the body. We started to break off into smaller groups in order watch each other utilize the space. Witnessing was a good way to collect information on what is working well and what we can let go. Good ideas were kept for the next round of rehearsal and enhanced with visual understanding.

Exploring all the nooks of space in the Commons.

One of the greatest challenges of this assignment was to consider the group against the individual. Allowing just a few ideas to happen at a time and how one can contribute to what the audience sees as a whole.  How do you create a beginning, middle and end, as a group with so many voices?

For the last hour of the workshop we walked to each space on campus to witness the creations. Each group found ways to utilize their space in radical and exciting ways. Sound played a huge part in these works. Sounds of feet stomping against the concrete stairs of the library, loud giggles echoing through the airy atrium, hands rattling the bars of the balcony in the commons and the ambient sounds the silent dancers allowed us to hear in the gym.

Sounds created by stomping, skipping, clapping and jumping added to score at the library.

Our dancers now have new tools for creating reflective movement and most importantly working together. Collaboration does not always come easy, but finding a way to listen to each other with our bodies and minds is an invaluable lesson. 

Audience members walk by the sculpturesque dancers in the gym.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

Below are a few photos from the 4th of July. After a full day of classes, everyone walked downtown to watch our local fireworks display right over the falls in Auburn. And of course many wore their most stylish red, white and blue!

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.

This fluidity between music and dance is constantly emphasized during our classes here. Almost all classes are accompanied by live music. These fantastic musicians come from many different backgrounds and all have impressive resumes that include playing MANY different instruments, dancing, composing, touring, and teaching (often to dancers). You can read the accompanists bios to learn more about where they come from.

We had a ton of fun at our placement class, partly because we had all the musicians in one place to jam for us!

In Heidi’s class the other day, we were working on a tough combination that included a lot of direction changes and deep lunges. She stopped class and asked us to really inhabit the music Glen Fittin had created for us. Locking into the deep drum beats for our legs and feet and finding the lyricism in our arms and torso, as we change directions. “Listen to the information the musician is giving to you,” she kept telling us. Reminding the class that Glen is watching and building along with us.

The partnership between musician and dancer is even more apparent in Afro-Carribean class. Each day, Osubi Craig and Kwame take a few moments to teach us what is happening on the drums. We talk about how to count the music, what cues to listen to, where the music comes from and the tone of the music. The interconnectiveness of the movement and music is a huge part of what they teach.

Osubi and Kwame teaching the class about Brazilian music and dance.

When a student is injured and observing class they are always encouraged by the accompanists to add to the percussion. I have seen Shamou hand maracas, bells and chimes to students, getting them to add to his score in class.

Shamou and his percussion assistants in Kendra’s modern class.

I am sure this is only my first post of many, about our musicians. There is just too much to say! This Friday, in Afro-Carribean we will be drumming along with Osubi and Kwame. And on July 31st, you will have the opportunity to see many of our accompanists perform at the Musicians’ Concert.

-Posted by Caroline Barna. Caroline is BDF’s Social Media Intern for the 2013 summer.