With more than movement, CU dance bridges the gap
By Christina Chandler
“Here’s your vocab: stand, run, walk, jump, sit, lie down.”
Joan Bruemmer is giving 28 students an assignment. The vocabulary isn’t for a course in poetry or creative writing. It’s in a dance audition, and while Joan is a professor (in the performing arts), she is not on the faculty at the University of Colorado. She teaches at Naropa University and came to CU with the unique perspective of Boulder’s other university.
Bruemmer was joined by two other choreographers, Cindy Brandle and Chris Harris, neither of whom works regularly at CU. This is how CU’s Department of Theatre and Dance likes it; the collaboration supplies new artistic opportunities for its students.
During the first week back to school, these artists auditioned students for a new production coming in November titled “In the Current.” To bridge the gap between the professional dance community and students, the department is producing a show that allows professional choreographers to create original dances to be performed by CU students.
Each year, the department brings in a national guest artist for two weeks who choreographs a work using CU dance students as performers. While this exposes them to the experience of working with different choreographers, sometimes only 10 to 12 dancers of the approximately 100 majors in the department study directly with the guest artist.
Bob Shannon, a senior instructor in the department and the faculty organizer for this production, explains, “Students may only experience work from two of our faculty members while at CU. [“In the Current”] will broaden their perspectives. It will get our students to have a wider experience of dance choreography, to work with other folks besides just us.”
With this new show, choreographers went through an application process that, Shannon assures, brings in higher-quality work. “We’ve always been good at reaching out to the community. And it’s a big part of our mission now. This is important that we bring in people to work with our students to give them as much varied experience as possible.”
In addition to the works of these three choreographers, a fourth piece will feature freshman, transfers and dance minors—a largely underrepresented group in the department’s productions. Because of previously established rehearsal schedules determined during the spring, these new students often miss out on fall-performance opportunities. Two accomplished graduate students, Lauren Beale and Sabrina Cavins, are putting together a dance by working with these students in a co¬ llaborative rehearsal process.
Beale explains that she and Cavins are hoping “to foster an excitement and a sense of passion, creativity and courage to own their voices as performers, as dancers or artists, as they move forward into the university system.”
On a hot August afternoon, a large studio was abuzz with laughter, hugging and excited conversations. This air of reconnecting could be found all over campus, but once the audition began, this classroom expressed its conversations both through words and movement.
A different language
Coming from a theatre background, Bruemmer plans to incorporate spoken word into the choreography she will bring to CU, and this was evident from the start of the audition.
Speaking in a dance studio can prove unfamiliar for dancers, as they most often rely on their bodies for expression. While dressed in the common attire—leotard, tights—and pinned audition numbers, the dancers shared stories prompted by questions from Bruemmer.
The inspiration for her choreography comes from a book titled “The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers,” by Naropa Professor Bhanu Kapil. The book chronicles an experience of asking strangers provocative questions in everyday settings like cafes and airports.
The dancers used their voices in the studio to describe mornings they awoke without fear and answered questions such as, “How will you live now?” While dancers had the physical prowess to communicate with movement, their literal voices proved powerful, too.
Some spoke of life’s big questions, such as whether the chicken precedes the egg or vice versa. Others reminisced about that morning’s breakfast. Some explained their fearlessness while others admitted fear keeps them on their toes—literally.
Bruemmer heard excerpts of Kapil’s book at a previous Naropa convocation and immediately saw the choreographic potential. “In the Current” will allow her to work out that vision and bridge the two neighboring schools. As she says, “Each school and the faculty and the students have unique perspectives that we can share.”
Bruemmer describes herself as “more of a choreographer who organically pulls work out of students and forms from there,” as opposed to bringing previously choreographed movement for the dancers to memorize. This pulling from the dancers won’t be limited to Bruemmer and her choreography.
She and her dancers have worked with Todd Bilsborough, a Naropa music student, as he composes an original score for Bruemmer’s choreography. Bilsborough played for improvisational movement classes in the past and is familiar with creating improvised music from improvised dance.
“It’s a really magical experience because there is a lot of organic material that comes out of [movement] that’s really fun to work with. It’s a very collective experience, and it really unifies dance and music that are kind of the same anyway—just different media that both use events occurring over time. [Music] develops organically out of the material you generate in rehearsals. You never quite know what is going to come out of it that way,” he says.
Transitions in dance and life
Brandle included similar components in her portion of the audition by instructing the dancers to move in groups across the space while speaking and making physical contact. Additionally, she spent her time with the dancers in a circle with everyone lying on their backs.
While lying down she asked them to explain, in unison, transitions they’ve experienced in their lives. Brandle was seeking inspiration for her upcoming work with the dancers.
Her piece, tentatively titled “Transitions,” explores the question: Are there transitions in life, or is life seamless? Often, a choreographer brings a finished product to teach to a group of dancers, but this audition proved that much collaboration occurs in dance as professional and academic communities collide.
Brandle is the artistic director of The Cindy Brandle Dance Company in Boulder. The Chicago-based company formed in 2004, but moved to Boulder just over a year ago.
Brandle has been pondering the idea of transitions since relocating from one dance scene to the other and looked forward to working with CU ever since; she is fulfilling that now as part of her own transition in this new city.
After starting her company following the birth of her daughter, Brandle became more aware of the world around her. “I was trying to find my place as a voice for change through the arts. To take things that are interesting to me in terms of how the world is working, abstracting it into dance, and making it relevant through movement.”
Harris, though third to audition the dancers after they’d been moving for two hours, met excited faces and eager bodies in the students. She explained that those selected for the piece will wear all recycled materials, such as toilet-paper rolls as bracelets, coffee filters, and ratty, old T-shirts.
She says, “This particular piece is unique in that it came from a concept of using recycled music, choreography and costumes.”
Harris, a Colorado native, is the artistic director and choreographer for Louder Than Words Dancetheatre, artist in residence at the Denver School of the Arts and on the faculty of Dance Kaleidoscope and A Living Arts Centre. Also, she serves as a co-director of the Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop, the assistant artistic director of Interweave Dance Theatre, and the artistic director/choreographer for Colorado Youth Danse Theatre in Denver.
The choreography Harris brings to CU for this production appeared on a professional stage with Interweave Dance Theatre, and in a sort of dance recycling, she hands it over to CU students, entrusting them with the professional choreography.
The students cast in these pieces won’t be learning only movement in rehearsal. “There are many ways to work in the field if you want to. There are so many ways to get involved. There are plenty of ways to get your art fix,” Shannon says.
Looking beyond graduation
Bruemmer hopes the dancers will walk away learning more than just her movement. “Most dance companies these days ask you to be more than just a technical dancer. In the performance community, most of the students are not going to go out and join established companies. They are going to go and create their own companies, or they are going to join smaller, specialized-dance companies. We have to be able to move and at least be comfortable in all the worlds of performance because it just gives us more options to sustain ourselves. With my piece, the students will walk away with skills and tools to create their own work, with: How do I create something from nothing?”
Harris concurs. She says it’s critical to bridge the gap between the professional dance community and academia. “Students graduate and move into the professional realm and often don't have a solid grasp on what they are going to face. The more they can work outside of the ivory tower, the more solid they will be as they make that transition.”
Beale stresses that “In the Current” brings in all professional choreographers who work very successfully out in the community. She hopes the dancers, especially those working with her, see that there is more to being in a dance show than what happens onstage. She cites being backstage—dressing-room conversations and seeing the inner workings—as invaluable for dance students.
While Brandle eagerly learned the dancers’ experiences with transitions, she has advice for them about the transition between college dance and the professional dance world.
“It’s a really important factor to be able to see as a student where you can actually take this very unstable career. It’s a hard career. And unless you have it engrained deep in your soul, it’s really hard to stick with. For young dancers, I think it’s really positive to see people who are sticking with it. I think it’s a great way to show people to keep following that passion.”
Beale notes that one of the main reasons she chose to participate in this production comes from her time spent as both an undergraduate in CU’s dance department as well as a graduate student. She acknowledges that making it in the dance world is all about connections.
“It’s not necessarily always who has the best technique or the best form. It’s about being in relationships with your peers and being in conversations with the people who are out there doing it. Get a sense of what they’re up to and see their work. That sort of thing really pays off in a lot of ways.”
Notably absent from the audition were dancers’ nerves. Instead, students flashed smiles brought on by a favorite step or gesture; one even mouthed during Harris’ choreography, “This piece makes me happy!”
The dancers were never content performing the choreography just once or twice to the panel of professionals. After each round of groups danced, they all asked to do it again and again.
Shannon knows it is sure to be a busy semester in the department. “They just want to dance all day long,” he says of the students. “And they do. They rehearse every moment.”
See “In the Current” Nov. 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m. or Nov. 13 at 2 p.m. To buy subscription packages and single tickets, call 303-492-8181 or visit http://ev12.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetGroupList?groupCode=TD&linkID=colorado-pa&shopperContext=&caller=&appCode=
University Theatre Building (Basement Level, Lower Lobby) The University Theatre Building is on the south side of the Norlin Quad on the CU-Boulder campus. Hours: Monday-Friday 12-4 p.m. and one hour before shows begin.
CU students, $8; general public, $10; high school students, $5.