Three School of Dance MFA Candidates Examine our Understanding of Form
Bridget Close’s “Consider the Source” | Dancers: Mackenzie Pane, Rachel Hickman, Aaron Smith | Photographer: Meagan Helman
March 1 & 2, 2019 @ 7:30pm
Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theater
Montgomery Hall
130 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee FL 32306
Julie Opiel’s “Fourth Girl on the Left” | Photographer: Meagan Helman | Set Design: Justin Bailey | Costume: Julie Opiel
School of Dance MFA candidates, Julie Opiel, Bridget Close and Sarah Rose, will present Fractured Form, an evening of dance performance in partial fulfillment of their Master of Fine Arts Degrees in Dance on March 1 & 2, 2019 at 7:30pm in the Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theater located in Montgomery Hall, 130 Collegiate Loop, Tallahassee FL 32306.
Fractured Form is a 90-minute dance concert composed of individual dance performance pieces by Opiel, Close, and Rose. Collectively these three choreographies examine, question, and promote a new understanding of form: the form of the female body, of nature, of dance performance and ultimately of the concert being presented.
Julie Opiel’s Fourth Girl on the Left opens Fractured Form, with a look into the relationship of the female body to classical ballet. Julie collaborated with designer and three-dimensional artist, Justin Bailey, to create structures that act as both scenic design and as dancers within the corps de ballet, demonstrating the use of bodies as props in ballet. This work is a reflection of Julie’s experiences as a ballet dancer, representing her simultaneous reverence for and resistance to the aesthetic. Fourth Girl on the Left opens with a solo in which Julie explores her own body as a physical structure. The dance unfolds into an enchanting corps de ballet of multiple bodies moving in and out of unison, dancing through and alongside Bailey’s elegant archways.
Sarah Rose’s “Opening, again” | Dancers: Taylor Ballard, Mara Goebelbecker, Sarah Rose;
| Photographer: Ryker Laramore
Following Opiel’s investigation of body as object, Bridget Close explores human relationship to nature in Consider the Source. Consider the Source is a 25-minute contemporary dance piece featuring eleven dancers. Each dancer has generated movement by embodying discarded and fallen flora: branches, leaves, seeds, and flowers. Their movement is creaturely and gestural. The whimsical and magical environment created for the piece is built from the same foundation as the movement: Earth’s debris. Pieces of discarded flora originally gathered by the performers during the choreographic process are used as props and become part of the dance score. The music is generated on stage using voice and percussive instruments, some of which are suspended in the air alongside fallen nature, raising natural debris up from its fallen position.
Closing Fractured Form is Sarah Rose’s Opening, again. Opening, again questions the expectations of dance performance. What counts as dance? Where should it happen? How should it be created, viewed, recorded, and performed? This piece is the result of a 2-year collaboration with six undergraduates from the School of Dance. Through this 25-minute piece, Rose promotes a new way of viewing dance by inviting the audience to watch two simultaneous live versions: the live dancing bodies in front of them, and a live feed broadcast over Instagram live on their own phones. The viewers’ phones come together to create an audience “orchestra” which in turn creates the music for the dance.
Admission is free and donations supporting the Florida State University School of Dance will be accepted.
For more information about the School of Dance, call LaToya Davis Craig at (850) 645-2449 or email ldavis3@fsu.edu. The School of Dance is part of The College of Fine Arts at Florida State University.