This year has proven to be a phenomenal gift to the Choate arts, the dance department included. Along with the sleek new dance studio, students are given the opportunity to broaden their experiences and explore something new. “Students work cooperatively as both choreographer and dancer to experiment with diverse compositional practices, from traditional to contemporary, narrative to conceptual,” Ms. Pam Newell, a dance teacher, explained. “We have been doing a kind of back and forth looking at contemporary choreographers and their historical predecessors. We look at the specific physicality of each choreographer, what inspires them, and how they want to be received by an audience.”
On October 12, the Dance Composition class attended the live ballet performance Masters at Work in New York City, featuring the masterpieces of Merce Cunningham and George Balanchine. The field trip was an excellent opportunity to see traditional compositional rules at their finest in Balanchine’s work and totally turned upside down in Cunningham’s work.
This field trip was definitely one that the whole Dance Composition class looked forward to because the NYC Ballet brings to life the creative works that they have been studying. Before departing campus, Ethan Luk ’20 said, “I’m so excited for the trip! ‘Serenade’ by Balanchine, one of the pieces performed in the program, was one of the first pieces that made me fall in love with dance and choreography. I can’t believe that I was watching YouTube videos of ‘Serenade’ last year, studying how Balanchine created formations and patterns, and this year I get to watch it live in action.”
The performance definitely lived up to the class’s expectations, as it beautifully demonstrated the choreographers’ skill as well as the ballet dancers’ passion and many hours of rehearsal. Laura Jiang ’21 said, “In ’Summer Space,’ we see Cunningham’s use of chance operations, his exploration of 3D planes, and six dancers displaying movement that has no real correlation, simply co-existing in a space with the music and visual art. In class, we’ve explored all of these elements in little studies, and this field trip certainly urges me to further explore this limitless world of movement and dance composition.”
Di’Anna Bonomolo ’20 said, “My favorite part of the performance was in the first piece when some of the women let their hair down. It portrays beauty and youth in the piece and adds a lot to the narrative. Moreover, the ending of the ballet dancers doing a bourée with the lead being lifted off an arching, symbolizing some sort of sad yet beautiful tragedy.”
Ms. Newell added, “It was an incredible occasion to bask in true dance artistry. The dancers are interpreters of the finest quality. In ’Serenade,’ in particular, the purity of expression supports a narrative that echoes in many directions, letting each individual find their own poetry.” Students in Dance Composition were able to form their unique interpretations of the works performed and seek inspiration from the performers.
Each student had their own takeaways from the field trip and their own thoughts about how the performance influenced their choreography careers. Andrew Chang ’21 said, “I think the most inspiring part of the field trip for me was how in sync all of the dancers were. When I was watching them on stage I just noticed how in unison they all were, and it got me thinking about how long they must have practiced. It made me consider how much better a dance would look when the performers are all in sync and also the ways you could use that unison to create new movements.”
Bonomolo believes the first and third piece were well-utilized formations, and the second piece used space amazingly well. Regarding her future compositions, Bonomolo wants to utilize more of the elements from the workshop to enhance her choreography. She thinks this experience has inspired her to go outside her comfort zone.
