DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA’S DANCE PROGRAM TO PRESENT:
Spring Dance Concert
Kim Brooks Mata, Producer and Artistic Director
April 10-12, 2025, at 8:00 p.m., Ruth Caplin Theatre
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The Dance Program of the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia presents its Spring Dance Concert on April 10, 11, and 12, at 8:00 p.m. in the Ruth Caplin Theatre. We invite you to join us for the presentation of 10 original student, faculty, and guest artist works – both live dance and film – performed by UVA dancers. Choreographers and filmmakers featured in this concert examine themes of connection, impact, repetition, and seeking harmony. The works invite us to consider the complexities of relationship with people, environments, and ourselves, exploring the variety of ways we internalize and respond to our environment, our own actions, and the actions of others.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL FOR TWO SHORT BEHIND THE SCENES FILMS BY MORA POQUETTE!!
The Dance Program is thrilled to have had the opportunity to invite guest choreographer Betty Skeen to work with some of our students throughout the semester on a piece that will open this concert. Skeen holds a BA in Dance from Sweet Briar College and an MFA from University of Maryland, College Park. She is an extended company member with Pearson Widrig Dance Theatre and her original work has been shown extensively in the Metro-D.C. area, NYC, Brooklyn, and a number of other regions of the US, as well as Montescudaio, Italy. Skeen recently moved from the Hudson Valley with her husband and two daughters to continue her teaching practice as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Sweet Briar College.
Skeen’s artistry as a dancer and choreographer is rooted in the exploration of motion as both an enduring and essential force. Through a deep investigation of actions, reactions, impulses, and habits, Skeen examines how the way we move can dramatically influence our perception of ourselves and the world around us. “The cast and I explored and developed movement vocabulary around the ideas of vanishing, thawing, and falling,” Skeen said. Her piece, Vanishing and Some Other Seasons Too, adds a unique layer to this study. “We worked with handheld lights, which gave us the opportunity to play with shadows and very specific framing.”
Assistant Professor Katie Baer Schetlick's latest work, between possibilities, features a live performance of Terry Riley's Keyboard Study No. 2 by pianist Jade Conlee, a Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow in the Music Department. Known for its emotive power, live music adds a dynamic layer to the piece, offering a unique opportunity for a direct exchange of emotion between the creation of sound and its physical expression through movement, enhancing the depth and intensity of the performance. “The performers, both dancers and musician, bury themselves physically within the infinity sign appearing throughout Riley’s written score,” Schetlick said. “As the performers move, respond, give in or redirect, they remind themselves and those who witness that they are a possibility.”
Five of our student choreographers and filmmakers this spring are in their final semester at UVA. Choreographing for the dance concert this spring is a first for Delaney Walts, a fourth-year Global Public Health major and Dance minor. In her piece, (Sub)liminal, Walts shares that “I approached the process through the lens of my own experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Exploring themes of obsession, compulsion, rumination, and control, the work delves into how these experiences influence our relationships with ourselves and others.” Walts intentionally selected music that highlights these internal contradictions. She explains “the music choices are juxtapositional and contrast ideas of internalization, the kinesthetic experience of internal tension, and outward expression.” Walts is also grateful to her cast of dancers – incredible fellow artists who have each brought their own experiences to the creative process.
Dance filmmaker Mora Poquette, a fourth-year Drama major with a minor in Chemistry, is also contributing to the concert for the first time with a new screendance, or dance film. Her work, Shift, blends her experience in theatre, cinematography, and the choreography of the edit to bring a unique perspective to the piece in which editing and timing play a significant role. When asked about the piece Poquette said, “I wanted to entice the audience to reflect on their unique personal journey: challenges, joys, and what connects you to yourself, to others, or to the world.” Dancers were instructed to synthesize gestures representing visibility, reflection, and passion. These gestures were then turned into a large group phrase to integrate their separate journeys into the same realm, because no matter where you are in life, your journey is not isolated. Poquette added, “the intention of the piece is about self-love, reclamation of fervor for life, and interpersonal connection.”
Third-year Biology and Behavioral Neuroscience major and Dance minor Elizabeth Moore is also choreographing for the concert for the first time, though she danced in the department’s dance concerts the last four semesters and has been dancing since she was three years old! Her piece, Earthenware, explores the effect that each interaction we have with others has in shaping who we become. While concepts such as this can be difficult to convert to visual and physical expressions, Moore found a very apt and compelling way to do so. “I am inspired by clay as everything that touches clay leaves an imprint or molds it in some way,” she said. In fact, Moore started her creative process bringing this concept to reality with her cast. “I had my cast choose a color of clay and make a shape out of their chosen color,” she shared. “Then we passed the clay shapes around and we each added a piece of our clay to everyone else’s shape.” These clay creations served as an inspiration for Moore and her cast throughout the process.
Deneishia Haralson, a Kinesiology major and Dance minor, created Journey as a reflection on her semester of self-discovery and reflection. While this is her second piece to appear in a dance concert, it is her first time choreographing a solo. “My work takes the audience on a journey through my time as a dance minor and the opportunities it has provided to engage with and strengthen my training in various dance techniques.” Haralson employs movement vocabulary from ballet, contemporary, modern, and jazz in various combinations, culminating in movement exploration based on knowledge and skills cultivated during her time in the dance minor program. She credits not only her dance professors, but also her peers – past and present – and their impact on her journey at UVA. “Their unwavering support, encouragement, and push to expand my creative thinking have given me a wealth of knowledge that I will treasure forever.”
the rest of it, by Emma Strebel, navigates a different kind of journey, traveling through the process of healing, in whatever form that may be for a person, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. Strebel, a Global Studies, Interdisciplinary major and Dance minor, said “the dancers in my piece explore aspects of healing involving repetition, recovery, balance, and grit.” She hopes this piece will feel familiar and relatable to those who have recovered or are continuing to recover from the unexpected difficulties life can throw at us.
Another dance film in this concert was created by second-year Naomi Diener, a Youth and Social Innovation major and Dance minor. Diener created the piece, entangled, her second film to appear in a dance concert, as the final project for her fall Screendance course. This work delves into the intricate relationship between two dancers as they navigate the same space without awareness of each other's presence. Through their movements, the first section of the piece explores how their unseen connection subtly influences their actions, highlighting the profound, yet unrecognized, impact their interaction has on each other. A shift occurs when the dancers come into contact with one another. “Now they explore the same space knowingly and with physical contact, navigating the original dissonance between them by finding an eventual harmony.” Diener added, “I worked with two incredibly talented dancers who have had experience performing together, but with styles of movement that are distinct from each other.”
Also focused on connection, fourth-year Eleanor Byrd, a Mathematics major, Dance and Data Science minors, invites audiences to reflect on how the choices we make and the paths we choose can unexpectedly bring us together, showing how each step, each decision, has the potential to create meaningful connections with others. Byrd’s piece, conditional convergence, experiments with sharp, fast movement as well as weighted movement using the floor and low levels. “My goal with the choreography of this piece is to challenge myself and my personal affinities in my choreographic choices and movement style,” she said. Byrd is further challenging herself in this second work for a department dance concert by working with six dancers – more than she has choreographed in any previous work. “I have enjoyed investigating the use of space with this many bodies, especially with the uniqueness of the Ruth Caplin Theatre,” she added.
Alicia Kesting-Kim’s dance film, Escape, was a collaborative work with dancer Naomi Diener and musician Jonny Cody. Kesting-Kim worked closely with Cody as she planned, filmed and edited the work. This kind of collaboration requires regular discussions regarding the overall concept and feeling tone of the film as well as sharing versions of the edited film and sound to continue to refine their co-creative work on the final piece. Kesting-Kim, a second-year Politics and Foreign Affairs major and Dance minor, has appeared as a dancer in multiple concerts, but this is her first creative work being presented in a Dance Program concert.
Tickets for the Spring Dance Concert can be purchased online at artsboxoffice.virginia.edu, by calling 434-924-3376, or in person at the UVA Arts Box Office, located in the lobby of the UVA Drama Building, open Tuesday through Friday from noon until 5:00 p.m. Tickets are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and UVA Faculty/Staff, and $5 for students. Full-time UVA students may receive one free ticket if reserved at least 24 hours in advance of their desired performance date.
Free parking on performance nights is available in the Culbreth Road Parking Garage, located next to the Drama Building.