UVA Drama’s Fall Dance Concert 
Explores Embodiment, Connection, and Transformation 

November 20–22 at 8:00 p.m. in the Culbreth Theatre

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The University of Virginia Department of Drama invites audiences to experience the 2025 Fall Dance Concert. Featuring six new pieces by students and faculty that invite audiences into spaces of reflection, resilience, and discovery through improvisation, collaboration, and innovative movement research. Choreographers and filmmakers consider the body as a site of tension and harmony, explore relationships between individuals and communities, and blur boundaries between structure and fluidity, the physical and the imagined.

Fourth year Elizabeth Moore’s work draws inspiration from “dis‑affinities” within the Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies System, a somatic framework she encountered in her Somatic Practices and Research course. Through an independent study this semester, Moore integrated somatic principles into her teaching, rehearsal, and choreographic process. “I’ve been drawn to the idea of disaffinity not only as a physical phenomenon but also as a metaphor for moments in life when things feel slightly ‘off,’” Moore explains. “When movement, emotion, or circumstance resist easy alignment.” This piece reflects the experience of being pulled in opposing directions and suspended in the tension –a space of friction, uncertainty, and possibility.

Moore credits the blend of research and practice and early morning rehearsals for shaping the piece’s unique energy: “I’m a morning person, so we often rehearse at 8:30 a.m. I’m incredibly grateful to my dancers for showing up early and embracing my creative experiments before most people have had their coffee!”

Alicia Kesting-Kim’s piece, Control, Conversion, Continuum, navigates the interplay between rigor and ease, structure and spontaneity. Inspired by the sharpness of everyday life, the work invites us to consider what happens when we allow ourselves to soften, listen, and connect. 

“The movement draws from the balance between control and release — how we learn to let go of perfection, rediscover ourselves, and acknowledge the people and energies that surround us,” says Kesting-Kim. Through collaboration and discovery, each dancer has brought their own voice to the work, shaping how the piece grows from isolation to connection. “It’s about leaving behind the noise and expectations that confine us,” she adds, “and stepping into something more human, expressive, and alive.”

Rooted in improvisation and visual installation, -hyphen-, co-choreographed by students Emma Block, Krischal Sutar, and Rui Wang, examines the liminal space between life and death — a threshold of ambiguity and transformation. Developed heavily from time spent filming in the University Cemetery, the piece merges projected film and live performance as dancers trace webs of yarn connected to their bodies like umbilical cords, intertwining the two worlds of the stage and the screen.

“We linger in the hyphen — neither dead nor alive,” the co-choreographers explain. “We attempt to make the intangible more tangible and the -hyphen- more fully realized. We hope you leave not lost in isolated abstraction, but rather thoroughly -tangled- in earthly ambiguity.”

Through movement, sound--including original music by composer Gabrielle Cerberville--and light, -hyphen- becomes an immersive meditation on connection, decay, and renewal.

In Remnants of Blue, choreographer Demetia Hopkins honors the emotional and cultural legacy of the blues. What began as an inquiry into emotionally unavailable relationships evolved into a tribute to the resilience, vulnerability, and creative freedom rooted in this distinctly African-American art form. 

“I aimed to look beyond the music and uplift the Blues as a point of connection, an expression of themes so universal that its humanity cannot be denied,” Hopkins shares. Fusing Afrocentric and Eurocentric dance forms with call and response, improvisation, and progression through repetition, the performers channel the essence of the genre, the healing power of rhythm and storytelling. 

The piece incorporates Emma Lazarus’s poem The New Colossus and original poetry by Hopkins, bridging personal and collective experience. “The blues is not exclusively sad,” Hopkins shares, “it is an innovative expression of struggle, joy, and the unyielding desire for liberty.”

Naomi Diener’s screendance (dance film) un/seen delves into the psychology of visibility and influence on an individual through the spotlight effect—the human tendency to overestimate others’ perception of us or how closely we are observed.

“This piece seeks to blur the boundaries between reality and perception,” Diener explains. Filmed across multiple locations and layered with sound and diegetic audio, un/seen combines guided improvisation with cinematic movement to create a haunting, intimate exploration of identity and influence. “Screendance is a powerful medium that allows us to experience dance in unique ways,” Diener adds, “through shifting perspectives, traveling through different spaces, and blending soundscapes into a disorienting psychological space.”

This semester Artistic Director Kim Brooks Mata worked with her largest cast in over a decade. “Getting to dive into the choreographic process with 12 dancers from diverse movement backgrounds was an invigorating experience,” Brooks Mata shares. “The cast worked tirelessly in rehearsal and were genuinely responsive to prompts and movement material I threw their way.” 

Brooks Mata describes the piece as an exploration of pattern and form. Employing dynamic movement material and shifting spatial relationships, the dancers come into and out of sync with one another and the sonic environment. “Students’ willingness to step into the unknown and trust in the process was an essential part of making this piece this semester. I feel indebted to each of these dancers for their creative contributions to the work and for helping to establish a generous and generative space in which to create.”