Deanna Caruso
Equinox Staff
This marks the thirty-seventh year that “An Evening of Dance” will showcase students’ dance routines to the public. First debuted in Drennan Auditorium, the performances danced their way to the Redfern Arts Center. This year’s routines take place Wednesday, April 10 to Saturday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Redfern’s Main Theatre.
The performance consists of eight fully-developed works choreographed by students, faculty members and a guest artist. Keene State College Dance Program Director Marcia Murdock knows a thing or two about how to put a concert like this together. Murdock has choreographed this concert for 28 years and directed it for 18 years. Knowing “An Evening of Dance” is performed every spring, Murdock and the dancers began recruitment and choreography in the fall of 2012. “Many of this year’s choreographers began their research and movement exploration during the fall, but the design and production process began this January,” she said.
With her quartet she wants to take modern dance to the next level, she said. “The dancers visit the moments before a photograph is taken, exploring the memory that is missing from the picture. The title is a line from e. e. cummings and offers the performers and audience a subtext for this journey,” Murdock said.
With hard work and dedication, she said her and her dancers’ work is about delivering the message of modern dance as being graceful and exciting as possible. “This year’s concert offers its audience the full breadth of a modern dance experience,” Murdock said. One of Murdock’s choreographers who helped create the dances for “An Evening of Dance” is Keene State College student Amanda Jones.
Choreographer Amanda Jones
Amanda Jones has danced since she was seven years old and is pursuing this form of art at KSC. She has worked on her dance piece since the beginning of last semester, when she enrolled in her Choreography class. “Some of the challenges of choreographing were being creative, trying to find a new type of vocabulary that has not really been done here at Keene State [College]. Also making every transition flow from one movement to the next smoothly is always a challenge in choreography,” Jones said.
In addition to her own piece, Jones will be dancing in three pieces. She has danced in “An Evening of Dance” since her freshman year. She said what inspired one of her dance pieces were the lives and stories of the women involved in the “Rosie the Riveter” era during the World War II, those who worked in the factories and took the jobs of the men when they were fighting for our country.
Dancer Colleen Carroll
Senior Colleen Carroll is dancing her way through life. Dancing since she was five years old, she did everything from ballet to jazz. She even taught jazz and hip-hop in her hometown of Bedford, N.H.
Since Carroll is a double major in elementary education and dance, the dance program encouraged her to audition her freshman year. Carroll was cast in one dance and since then has been a part of “An Evening of Dance,” Carroll said. Carroll will be performing in two dance pieces of modern dance, the outfits of one blue flowing dress and the other lace. “The movement looks beautiful with these outfits, it flows really well,” Carroll said. This year will be bittersweet for Carroll since she will be graduating in May and next week will be her last time performing in the concert. Carroll said, “In the beginning we do cast warm ups and the seniors have to do the warm ups and this is going to be the last thing I do so it is going to be sad! It is also going to be really hard to say goodbye to these people and this program.”
Dancer Taylor Jorgensen
Sophomore Taylor Jorgenson did improv work for a semester before he was cast for “An Evening of Dance.” However, an audience member would not know that he took his first dance class just last semester.
Jorgensen is familiar with performing since he is a theatre major and has performed in musicals before. Some of the challenges for preparing for this concert were that this piece was physically and emotionally demanding, “It is a 15-minute piece, and since it is modern dance there really is intention in the emotion of what is behind the dance. It is also emotionally challenging trying to get yourself to the place where you need to be.” Upon graduating, Jorgensen would like to move to a city and do theatre work, but for right now he is focused on his dance piece and having his friends and family see him in a new light of dancing, rather than just acting.
These dancers see “An Evening of Dance,” not only as a way to display their art, but as a way to communicate a message from students to students.
Deanna Caruso can be contacted at
dcaruso@keene-equinox.com