If there’s ever a time to catch a glimpse of the dance program at Northwestern, it’ll be this weekend at “Danceworks 2012.” The annual show is choreographed by the dance faculty and performed by some of its students. Dancers and Communication juniors Parker Murphy and Ross Flores took a break from rehearsals to chat with The Current about working with the choreographers, feeling texture and the journey of the performance.
Excerpts:
The Current: How did you get involved in “Danceworks?”
Parker Murphy: I started in it my freshman year and have done it every year since. It was a really great way as a dance major to work with the faculty that I take classes with, and being in a piece directed by a professor is such a different experience to being in a class with them. To put everything you learn in class into a rehearsal and then into a performance is a really amazing experience.
Ross Flores: This is the first time I’m doing “Danceworks” so I’m very happy about that. The choreographers are incredible, and it’s a very intimate personal process that I love. I felt like it was time for me to do it. Last year, the only reason I didn’t do it was because I unfortunately had to receive back surgery so I could not dance. This year, I really wanted to take advantage of the amazing dance program we have here, the great faculty, people who are established dancers in the Chicago-land area, in the country. I realized it was also a time to spend with my friends, expressing myself artistically around a great community.
The Current: What can you tell us about the pieces you are in?
PM: I’m dancing in two this year. One of them is with choreographer Amanda Lower. It is a piece of about the development of grief and it’s a lot of fun with partnering and contact. Plus, it is very collaborative between choreographer and dancers. The second piece is by choreographer Jeff Hancock and it is about kind of losing something and then finding it again. It is a great piece with a lot of energy, very unique. It uses projections and plays with the space.
RF: I am a member of Amanda’s piece. And I have a little cameo at the end of Annie [Beserra]’s piece. Amanda’s was an absolutely amazing rehearsal process where they’re pretty open to discussion. Some of the time, you actually choreograph based on improvisation and through feeling texture from the beach or personal experience. It’s been a great process because in a sense of altering, we didn’t change the choreography that she gave us but we made it so it’s what we’re feeling and makes the choreography itself organic and it’s a very personal piece. It’s never getting old, or getting repetitive because we’re always feeling it, it’s natural. The movement that I do, I really believe in, that’s who I am, that’s my character. It’s also the longest dance piece I’ve been in. Somewhere around 17 and 19 minutes.
The Current: What do you anticipate with this “Danceworks?”
PM: I anticipate that we’ll get a good audience. We would love to have the student body attend and we have really been working on publicity and getting the word out. It is in a really good place and we are prepared and excited to have a good audience.
RF: It’s a journey. It hits all of your emotions, it’ll catch your eye -something will do it for you. It’ll make you think. Sometimes you won’t want to think while you’re watching it. Sometimes it’ll make you laugh, maybe it’ll make you cry. The whole show is so eclectic. It offers so much and I didn’t know how they could put all these pieces together that are so different, but now, seeing the runthrough, it really works and there’s something you’re going to like in there.
“Danceworks 2012″ opens Friday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. in the Louis Theater and runs through its last performance Sunday, Mar. 4 at 2 p.m.
-Colleen Park and Hayley Stevens
Editor’s note: This article misquoted Parker Murphy. The article has been changed to reflect the correction. The Daily regrets the error.
