FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER 2018–2019

Inspired by the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Camille A. Brown choreographed New Second Line, a celebration of the culture of New Orleans and the perseverance of Black people in the midst of devas- tation. The performance borrows its name from the energetic, spirited people who follow the traditional brass band parades for weddings social events and, most notably, funerals in New Orleans. Brown asserts that the dance “honors our ability to rise and keep rising.”

PHOTOS BY DEREK FOWLES CAMILLE A. BROWN: NEW SECOND LINE AND MOVING CULTURE, DANCING JUSTICE: A CONVERSATION Co-Editors: Rodger Blum and Joanna Faraby Walker Camille A. Brown is a dancer and choreographer histories of black social dance to millions of viewers for our times. Her commitment to “reclaiming the in a fantastic TED-sponsored video to running a cultural narrative of African American identity” is a community engagement platform called Every kind of connective tissue running through all her Body Move, dance for Brown is always connected artistic endeavors—from her early work as a performer to broader understandings of [social] movement, with Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE to her acclaimed community advocacy, and everyday people.

dance-making with her company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers (CABD), her viral TED-Ed video on the history of In tracing the movement legacies that fuel black African American social dance and her choreography creative survival, and at the same time insisting on the

College ways these movement legacies continuously morph

PAID for the recent Broadway revival of Once on This Island Hampshire U.S. Postage U.S. Nonprofit Org Nonprofit and the NBC production of Jesus Christ Superstar Live and reinvent, Brown’s work insists on the vitality of in Concert. In each instance, Brown’s “bold work taps collective movement. Her work offers us a lens on both into both ancestral stories and contemporary culture the power of black social dance as source and affirma- to capture a range of deeply personal experiences.” tion, as well as on the movement stories that have too often been silenced, degraded and marginalized. During the 2018–19 academic year, Five College dance students and faculty members were privileged In light of this particular moment in this country to engage deeply with this remarkable artist. In early right now . . . a moment in which women are taking September, Mayte Natalio, a dancer with CABD, was a stand, speaking their truth more prominently than in residence in the Valley to teach 23 students a ever, using voice and presence to expose the violence section from Brown’s New Second Line. That work was inscribed in their embodied histories, histories too performed on four Five College campuses under often carried in silence, Camille Brown’s work the rehearsal direction of Shakia Brown. In late resonates strongly and encourages us to recognize September, Brown spent a Friday afternoon in a public that black women and girls have long had to—and conversation moderated by Deborah Goffe, assis- continue to —bear misogynist violence, and black tant professor of modern and contemporary dance women have long been at the forefront of the struggle at Hampshire College. They discussed Brown’s against such violence and for bodily autonomy and intersecting career pathways through concert dance, recognition. choreography for theater and in commercial contexts and her community engagement initiatives as social The Five College Dance Department is pleased to justice interventions. present this work by Camille A. Brown and grateful for funding from its member institutions, Five Colleges The FCD Camille A. Brown project was made possible and the National Endowment for the Arts. We hope by our member campuses, a generous grant from the this work will create space to consider choreography National Endowment for the Arts, and the Five College and engaged movement as powerful sites of world- Consortium. Attendance for Professor Goffe’s conver- making centered on what the body carries, knows, sation with Brown exceeded our expectations, and so, testifies to and can potentially transform. with great support from many offices at Hampshire College, we were able to move that event to a larger venue to accommodate upwards of 475 people. “As a choreographer,

I am interested in that Program Notes from Dasha Chapman, FCD Assistant Professor of Critical Dance Studies (2018): Camille space between dance A. Brown’s multifaceted work traverses predefined and theater where realms and kites both viewers and participants to interdisciplinary work other possibilities. Brown crosses boundaries between defies category and @fivecollegedance

movement genres and challenges conventional takes flight.” demarcations on what dances belong where. From Black Girl: Linguistic Play, which centered its inves- —Camille A. Brown (413) 559-6622 893 West 893 West Street tigations on the tenderness and ingenuity of black Amherst, MA 01002 MA Amherst, girls’ movements, to choreographing dance the- www.fivecolleges.edu/dance

Five College Dance Department Dance College Five ater on Broadway to bringing the contexts and Dance Building, Hampshire College Hampshire Building, Dance @fivecollegedance @fivecollegedance

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst1 FCDD ALUMNI DANCE GOES BIG AT UMASS AMHERST NEWS Lisa Biggs (AC ’93) joined REFLECT/RESPOND: A LIMÓN DANCE LEGACY the faculty at Brown University as an assistant Few dance students have access to study the techniques that form the bedrock of today’s contemporary dance universe, and fewer yet, the professor in the Depart- ment of Africana Studies / possibility to perform these works alongside the professionals who regularly create and perform them. In January 2019, for the first time on Rites and Reason Theatre, the UMass Fine Arts Center Main Stage in almost 40 years, and with a focus on the canon of modern dance masterpieces, 12 UMass / Five College where she offers courses in devising new work and dancers performed José Limón’s seminal Choreographic Offering, and were joined by Limón Company dancers Savannah Spratt and David Glista. African American theater This work was restaged by a former and performance studies. Limón Dance Company member Lauren Erin Brown (SC and UMass dance professor, Paul ’98) was promoted to associate professor of Dennis. Spratt and Glista also opened History at Marymount the evening with a performance of Manhattan College. Her recent article, “‘As Long Limón’s Exiles. as They Have Talent’: Organizational Barriers As the program’s title suggests, to Black Ballet,” published in Dance Chronicle in Reflect/Respond: A Limón Dance 2018, documents the Legacy provided students a deep demand for ballet in the black community of the pedagogy that informed their dance mid-20th century and the studies with both historical context role organizations such as the Ford Foundation, New and contemporary relevance. The York City Ballet, and the UMass / Five College dancers show- Dance Theatre of Harlem played in both aiding cased the important canon that has and slowing the field’s pioneered the contemporary dance integration. world alongside a newly commis- Kiera Cecchini (UM ’17) sioned work for 14 FCD dancers by works as a substitute the contemporary choreographer teacher and freelance videographer and dance and Guggenheim Fellow David instructor. In fall 2018, Dorfman. Created as his choreograph- Kiera cofounded a local dance/artist collective, ic Reflection/Response to Limón’s Visions, in Manchester, Choreographic Offering, Dorfman’s Connecticut. In August 2019, the Visions team Picture This is a glimpse into our debuted an evening- society, our relationships and how length event featuring dance, music and film, as we might imagine a future be- well as the work of other yond the now. Earlier during the fall Manchester-based artists of all creative media. In semester, four members of the addition, Kiera starts her Limón Dance Company were in next big adventure in fall 2019: the Film and Televi- residence at UMass, participat- sion Production MFA ing in educational and community program at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, engagement capacities, teaching Connecticut. master classes at UMass and area Charnice Charmant (SC schools under the direction of ’16) cofounded Afrobeats Dance Education Professor Molly Dance Boston, a dance company and community Christie Gonzáles. organization. As its artistic director, she produces —Paul Dennis, Associate Professor performances and teach- of Dance, UMass Amherst es a free Afrobeats com-

munity class for children FOWLES DEREK and adults. Moreover, as clinical research coordina- David Dorfman’s Picture This tor of the Joslin Diabetes Center, she works on studies that investigate the role of epigenetics and metabolic health on reproductive health and common diabetes complications.

Emily Clark (MHC ’18) spent the summer after graduation working as an RA for the Milwaukee Ballet Summer Intensive with Jenny Spicola (MHC ’15). It was an excellent opportunity to stay in class, experience a new city and work with young dancers. Then, after a road trip back to the East Coast, she moved to NYC to live with Kimberly Neil (MHC ’17) and Helena Valvur (MHC ’18). Emily keeps busy in NYC with work/study for Mark Morris Dance Center and Peridance Capezio Dance Center—often with Maggie Golder (MHC ’18) and Lilly Katz (MHC ’15). She also works as a physical therapy aide and as a nanny for a Smith alum, and is grateful to live in NYC and be sur- rounded by so many MHC and Five College alums.

Lauren Curry (MHC ’06) is the community engagement director at Indianapolis Movement Arts Collective, where she heads up a new summer program with a neighbor- hood partner, the MLK Center, in which the DEREK FOWLES DEREK Jóse Limón’s Choreographic Offering Continued on page 2

2 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER youth participants learn the production elements of making a music video HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE DANCE NAVIGATES CHALLENGES from a group of teaching artists. Twelve years before Hampshire College’s opening in 1970, Julianne DeRouin stakeholders from each of four sponsoring institutions— (UM ’18) traveled to Amherst, Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University Israel to train with Kibbutz Contemporary of Massachusetts—proposed a vision for an experimenting col- Dance Company and lege in A New College Plan: A Major Departure for Higher Educa- spent four weeks learning company repertoire and tion. In 1966, Franklin Patterson—Hampshire’s first president— studying ballet, contem- documented the development of that initial vision in The Making porary, improvisation of a College. As Patterson affirmed, “Hampshire College will seek and modern dance. Upon returning to the United to be an agent of change, both an undergraduate institution of States, Julianne worked excellence and a laboratory for experimenting with ways the and performed with organizations through- private liberal arts college can be a more effective intellectual out Boston and New and moral force in a changing culture.” He invoked the image of Hampshire, such as Tony Williams’ Urban Nutcracker, familial ties when referring to the interinstitutional partnerships Orcha Dance Theater, that would be forged between the colleges across the Valley and Saving Grace Dance as a result of Hampshire’s emergence in the world: “As the first Ensemble. In June 2019, Julianne returned to the conception of the New College in 1958 was an expression of the stage at the Huntington linked interests of institutions, the birth of Hampshire College is Avenue Theatre for Odyssey Opera’s produc- a time to strengthen the family of which it is a part.” tion of La belle Hélène.

Many of you are aware of the significant tumult Hampshire Donatella Galella (AC ’09) wrote a book, has faced in the wake of its January 2019 announcement that America in the Round: it would seek a strategic partner, its February decision not to Capital, Race, and Nation at Washington DC’s Arena bring in a new class of students for the fall 2019 semester, and Stage (University of Iowa its most recent decision to double down on its commitment to Press, 2019). She was also honored as a 2019 remaining independent. At the same time, despite this extraor- Woman of Distinction by dinary institutional turmoil, the Hampshire Dance Program Assemblymember Jose has demonstrated equally extraordinary community-building, Medina for California’s 61st State Assembly creativity and increasingly dynamic integration of theory and district. practice. I am most grateful to my colleagues Dasha Chapman Lauren Horn (AC ’17) (Five College visiting assistant professor of Critical Dance Studies) danced in Bite for Dante and Lailye Weidman (visiting assistant professor of Dance) for Brown Warehouse their devotion to our students, to the interdisciplinarity of arts Dance at Triskelion Arts and 92Y in NYC, and DEREK FOWLES DEREK practice and to collectively envisioning ways to carry the legacy in Liturgy|Order|Bridge Lailye Weidman of Hampshire Dance into the future against mounting odds. for Deborah Goffe’s Scapegoat Garden in Together we have savored the foundational work done by those the Five College Dance who preceded us — most recently, Daphne Lowell, Rebecca Nordstrom and Constance Valis Hill. That foundation has been a launching pad for Concert at Hampshire College, the School for first-year students’ intoxicating glimpses at the power and promise of dance practice, and for Division III students who have developed deeply Contemporary Dance considered and multimodal research projects that have continually restored my hope in the dance field they will soon inhabit and lead. I am and Thought (SCDT) and convinced that Hampshire’s future must be built from the kinds of relational and creative pedagogical engagements demonstrated by educators the Northampton Center for the Arts (NCFA). She such as Dasha and Lailye, Daphne and Becky, as well as by the alumni and current students who put those ideas in motion by bringing their full created and performed selves to the experimenting educational model that is Hampshire’s legacy. her original work Tech- n0Whore at SCDT and NCFA. She was an artist With bated breath and bodies in motion, and in the embrace of our Five College Dance family, we eagerly await the unfolding of Hampshire’s in residence at SCDT, where she created and future. In the coming months, we look forward to sharing the outcome of the tireless work Hampshire faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents performed an original have engaged to usher Hampshire into that future. And if you feel moved to visit, we welcome your support! work called RitualUnion. She toured Text Messages from her senior thesis, —Deborah Goffe, assistant professor of Modern/Contemporary Dance and Program Coordinator The Invisibility of Identity, to Bellevue, Washington, Giving to Hampshire: hampshire.edu/giving/giving-to-hampshire where she showcased the work in the Chop Shop Bodies of Work Dance Festival. While there, she also led a dance lec/ dem about the piece. Lauren performed in and choreographed a solo for Universal Womb, a theater and text-based show in THE DANCING AMBASSADOR Hartford, Connecticut. She traveled to California to perform in Rebecca OF DIASPORA: KATHERINE Pappas’ the dancer of the future. She also created a new work titled femme- DUNHAM ABROAD fractional.mp4, which she performed at the We One of the 20th century’s most important dance artists, the dancer and Create! festival in Boston. choreographer Katherine Dunham (1909–2006), created works that thrilled Emma Jaster (AC ’07) audiences the world over. As an African American woman, she broke barriers of is a movement direc- tor working in NYC and race and gender, most notably as the founder of an important dance company Washington, D.C. During that toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia for several spring 2019, she worked on a production of the decades. Dunham was also one of the first choreographers to conduct anthropo- opera La Susanna (or the logical research about dance and translate her findings for the theatrical stage. Baroque #metoo). The piece was performed at the Kennedy Center in Joana Dee Das, assistant professor of Dance at Washington University, visited Five April and at the Brooklyn College Dance to discuss her new book. In Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Academy of Music in May. Diaspora (Oxford, 2017), Dr. Dass makes the argument that Dunham was more than Jasia Kaulbach (AC ’14) a dancer; she was an intellectual and activist committed to using dance to fight for still works in NYC as a film racial justice — but on her own terms. Her book traces Dunham’s influence over director for documen- taries, advertisements the course of several decades from the New Negro Movement of the 1920s to the and music videos. Her

VANDAMM STUDIO VANDAMM Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and beyond. Dr. Das used her presentation music video for Madison McFerrin’s song Insane Katherine Dunham in Bal Negre, 1946 to focus on Dunham’s international tours from 1947 to 1960. Though the U.S. State was featured in the New Department denied Dunham the opportunity to be an official cultural ambassador, York Times, Paper, and in large part because she performed an anti-lynching ballet called Southland Pitchfork. (1950) in Chile and Paris, she served as an unofficial ambassador of the African diaspora. She exposed international audiences to an aesthetic of Eliza Larson (SC MFA modernity rooted in Africanist culture and forged relationships with leading black intellectuals, politicians and artists in the countries she visited. ’13) performed at the Dr. Das would argue that in its embrace of Africanist and indigenous cultural heritages, Dunham’s company was a model for the national dance Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in companies that would emerge after decolonization. March 2019 with the Mountain Empire Perfor-

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Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 3 mance Collective. She’s still living and dancing in Portland, Oregon, and started teaching a baby- STUDENT RESEARCH wearing ballet class with her baby daughter at a Every year, Five College Dance students produce important research exploring the history, theory new movement space and practice of dance. Below are excerpts from that research. in town.

Karene (Mody) Lawyer Dance as a Mechanism for Inclusion in Autism Spectrum Disorder Allana Scudder, (MHC ’07) has been living UMass Amherst ’21 Writing About Dance, Professor Molly Christie González in Mumbai, India since graduation. In 2008 she started Dance Essentials, The Boltwood Project, which I am involved in through the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is a service-learning course where I visit a local one of the first dancewear community center with a group of other undergraduates to actively engage adults with developmental and intellectual differences. . . . I have stores in India. Dance Essentials now provides been a piece of a larger group dynamic focused on utilizing dance as a mechanism for impacting individuals with developmental differences. dance attire to the The ways in which dance can be applied across age and ability can have significant effects on cognition and social functioning. My own experience majority of dance schools and companies across with public school in Massachusetts revealed a lack of inclusivity in secondary education. There is a divide that exists between neurotypical the country. In 2017 she students and students with developmental differences that produces discriminative thought. Therefore, I am aiming to provide a skeleton for cofounded the first Ballet crafting a creative arts program to bridge the gap between neurotypical students and students with developmental differences, specifically ASD, Festival of India at which distinguished faculty at adolescence: with dance- and arts-based educational practices as the guiding features of the program. members conducted daily classes in ballet, varia- tions and Feldenkrais; offered seminars covering topics from ballet history Description of Division III Project: Wemilere to pedagogy and music; Nadia Milad Issa, Hampshire College ’19 Directed as well as a panel discussion and dance by Professor Deborah Goffe performance on the closing night. Karene My Division III dance thesis work, Wemilere, honors the now hopes to start a year-round intensive ceremonial ritual festivals of the Regla de Ocha-Ifá reli- ballet training program gious practice, one of the Afro-Cuban spiritual-religious for talented students in Mumbai who don’t traditions, transforming space, disrupting the secular- otherwise have the institution with the sacred and ultimately cultivating opportunity to pursue ballet at a serious level. a casa-templo, a “temple-home.” Wemileres, also known as Tambores, are mostly located in people’s Jemma Levy (AC ’95) still actual homes. Practitioners organize a Wemilere for happily teaches at Wash- ington and Lee during the different motivations through the divination of Obi. school year and directs Since these ceremonies occur in people’s homes, professionally during the summer. In summer 2019, it heavily informed both my production and choreo- she directed Tartuffe for graphic choices to include nontraditional staging, Prague Shakespeare audience seating and participation. Company in the Czech Republic. She then re- turned to the States My process for creating Wemilere comes from three to direct Miss Holmes years of independent fieldwork research that I have for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company before returning conducted in Cuba and México focusing on Ocha to her students in the fall through auto-ethnographic written works alongside to work on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. rigorous dance and music training. In bringing an Afro-Cuban folkloric dance technique that comes After graduation, Janis

from a sacred religious context into a performance, BARNHART BEN Luke (SC ’18) worked as an organizer for one I really wanted to pay homage to those ceremonies Nadia Milad Issa of the top U.S. Senate rather than replicate an actual ceremony. Wemilere campaigns in the country. During that time, she had complimented my written thesis, which argues the opportunity to speak for Spiritual Reparations, highlighting the ways in which Black spiritual-religious traditions (and therefore ancestral knowledge) are targeted before upwards of 2,500 people at a rally where through politics, nationalism(s), policies, institutions, policing and militarized violence that practitioners confront throughout time within the President Obama was Black Caribbean diaspora. featured. Janis is currently working for Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin (SC ’84) and hopes to transition into the State Martha Graham’s American Document: Examining Department in the future. Gender, Race and Anti-Fascism Ella Carlson, Smith Kellie Ann Lynch (SC College ’21 Studies in Dance History, Professor MFA ’07) continues to Lester Tomé build community through dance with Elm City Dance Collective (ECDC) Many of Martha Graham’s early dances, such as in New Haven, Con- Heretic (1929) and Lamentation (1930), focused on necticut, a company she founded in 2008 and the struggles of an individual. American Document now serves as artistic (1938) was the first one to focus on the experience director. ECDC is a plat- form for service, activism, of a nation—it was one of several works categorized experiential choreography as her Americana phase, which would last approxi- and collaboration. She mately 10 years. Through this piece, she commented tours nationally and internationally with on one of the most salient political issues of her David Dorfman Dance time: the rise of fascism. In a 1939 review for the Los and dances with Adele Myers and Dancers, a Angeles Script, C. L. Rothwell proclaimed, “[The piece] company she’s been part transcends critical analysis and commands uncon- of for more than 10 years. She teaches movement ditional acceptance.” Agnes de Mille noted that privately, as well as in Graham “had a popular hit for the first time, one to colleges and universities, which all kinds of audiences could respond.” and is in her second year of Feldenkrais training. She lives in Hamden, This calls for an analysis of the reasons for this success Connecticut with her family. and their implications for the anti-fascist message. Meredith Lyons (SC MFA To make her commentary accessible to wide audiences, ’08) is the dance program Graham used elements such as spoken text, which coordinator and assistant professor of Dance at made the dance’s meaning explicit, the presence of Colorado Mesa Univer- MORGAN BARBARA a male dancer, which made the dance more conven- Martha Graham’s American Document, 1938 sity. Her dance studies tional than some of her earlier works, and of greatest research in somatics and dance pedagogy was significance in this analysis, the general structure of a most recently presented minstrel show, a form easily recognizable to audiences of the time. These aspects helped Graham attract larger audiences to see her anti-fascist at the Dance Studies Conference at the Uni- statement. However, the minstrel show structure diluted this message because of the contradiction inherent in using a racist performance style versity of Malta, and the to protest racist ideology. Further scrutiny reveals that this is not the only aspect of the piece that is contradictory to the anti-fascist message. International Association of Dance Medicine and Science conference in Helsinki, Finland. Current performance collaborations include Continued on page 7

4 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER DEREK FOWLES DEREK DEREK FOWLES DEREK Continuous Thread, Installation by Rodger Blum

turing dancers from Pilo- presented her work at Mellon School of The- curatorial research Molly Christie bolus, Bill T. Jones / Arnie international conferences ater and Performance culminated in her MA González (Assistant FACULTY Zane Company, and Sidi including Haitian Studies Research. thesis: Orienting Ourselves Professor, UMass), UPDATES Larbi Cherkaoui’s Eastman Association in Port-au- to See: Mapping Nested presented her research Company—was projected Prince, Haiti (November This academic year, Dance Ecosystems as Teaching the Whole Per- 2019 Deborah Goffe (Assis- on four layers of hand- 2018), and Sites Queer: Curatorial Practice in son: Katherine Dunham’s tant Professor of Mod- dyed and hand-painted Technologies, Spaces, New England. Goffe was Holistic Model of Edu- Chris Aiken (Associate silk. Continuous Threads ern/Contemporary also awarded the Ford Professor, SC), copre- Otherness at the Univer- cation at the National and two additional mixed- Dance / Program Co- Foundation–funded ICPP sented a paper titled “Pre- sity of Puerto Rico (Febru- Dance Educators Orga- media video works were ordinator, HC) carefully Leadership Fellowship, paring for the Unknown: ary 2019). This summer, nization Annual Confer- Nadia Milad Issa installed in the Keene, balanced her respon- which will support her Dance Improvisation in Chapman will serve as an ence in San Diego, and New Hampshire, Redfern sibilities as Hampshire organizing a three-day the Liberal Arts” with An- invited faculty member continues to be on the Arts Center in April. In College Dance Program convention of dance gie Hauser at the Arts and for the Mellon-supported executive board and June, Blum completed a Coordinator with com- artists of color from Humanities Conference “Dance Studies in/and faculty for the Institute two-year term as chair of pletion of her MA in Connecticut, Massachu- in Oahu, Hawaii. He pre- the Humanities” pre- for Dunham Technique Five College Dance. He performance curation setts and New York to sented a new collabora- conference seminar at Certification. She was a enjoyed serving as chair at Wesleyan University’s share concerns related to tive work, Remembering 2018–19 Fellow in the for the FCD and, before Northwestern University, Institute for Curatorial land, body, creative ca- the Future, at Tanzfabrik in that, for the Smith College and a selected participant Practice in Performance pacities and connection Five College Program for Berlin, with Ray Chung, Ka Department of Dance. in Harvard University’s (ICPP). This spring, her as survival strategies. Crossroads in the Study Rustler, Andrew Waas and Yet, after 17 years in Barnaby Tree. Together administrative roles, Blum with Angie Hauser, he led is delighted to return fully a weeklong Dance Impro- to the faculty. visation and Performance Intensive at Earthdance. Dasha Chapman’s (As- Aiken taught two three- sistant Professor, FCD/ week intensives at the HC) year teaching and Bates Dance Festival and mentoring at Hampshire codirected its Moving in College, as well as courses the Moment concert. He taught at Mount Holyoke also led a weeklong im- and Amherst, nurtured provisation intensive in her deepening commit- Tel Aviv and in New York ment to the powerful pos- produced by Movement sibilities of dance studies Research. pedagogy for opening up Rodger Blum (Profes- our thinking and doing sor, SC/FCD Chair), cho- in relation to the urgent reographed Happiness, matters of our day: inclu- hit her like a train on a sion/exclusion, isolation/ track for the Smith Col- community-building, lege Fall Concert. Happi- historical erasure / non- ness, an ensemble work Western arts, anti-racist set to music by Florence and feminist politics and + the Machine, was cho- other modes of being in reographed for 10 Five the world. After a sum- College dancers. In March, mer of research fellow- Blum premiered a new ships and performance video installation at Am- residencies in New

herst College, Continuous Orleans, New York City FLACHS CHARLES Wendy Woodson Threads. This work — fea- and Havana, Chapman Our House by Shakia Johnson

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 5 He also presented a paper in the Congress of the Latin American Studies Association ALUMS! (Boston). Throughout STAY IN the year, he served on the editorial boards of TOUCH Dance Research Journal WITH US! and Cuban Studies. In the Dear Alums: spring, he taught a new Please send us your course on advanced e-mail and other studies of history and contact information! aesthetics (Dancing E-mail us at Today: Aesthetics of [email protected] Contemporary Dance) and revamped a de Ballet International previous course on Conference in Florence, Italy. dance ethnography (Dance Anthropology: Wendy Woodson Performed Identities (Professor, AC) spent part and Embodied Cultures). of her sabbatical fall ’18 in Johannesburg, South Africa, In June 2018, Tom

CHARLES FLACHS CHARLES as a visiting artist with Vacanti (Associate WATERSHED: Art, Science Choreography by Barbie Diewald Professor, Program and Elemental Politics, a Director, UMass), spent program of exhibitions, of the Americas, con- premiered and toured an honor and a privilege contemporary ballet: “A two weeks in Venice, performances and scholarly necting professors whose Bebe Miller Company’s to spend 24 years Cuban Diaspora: Stories Italy, working with the panels to provoke new research crosses disci- new work In a Rhythm, teaching, creating work of Defection, Brain Drain performance artists Vest thinking about water, at plinary lines to explore with performances in and collaborating with so and Brain Gain in Ballet’s and Page (Verena Stenke Wits University. Her video identity formation in the NYC, Chicago, Seattle and many gifted colleagues, Global Labor Market” for and Andrea Pagnes) and Sourcing the Stream was Americas. González was multiple cities in Peru. students and community The Oxford Handbook Andrigo & Aliprandi exhibited at the Origins a 2018–19 Civic Engage- The work is accompanied organizations. It has been of Contemporary Ballet (the dancer Marianna Centre as part of this three- ment & Service Learning by two digital resources: a beautiful beautiful ride! and “Fetishized Other: Andrigo and sound an online portal, I will miss all of you. Thank week festival. Woodson was Fellow at UMass, which Carlos Acosta, Ballet’s artist Aldo Aliprandi). supported Dance Educa- “The Making Room” you!” Sekou Sylla will also also an artist in residence at New Cosmopolitanism, Collaborating with other tion II in becoming a des- themakingroom.org, and be leaving the Five College the Bogliasco Foundation and Desire in the Age international artists, ignated Service-Learning an ebook, “How Dancing Dance Department after in Italy, where she spent of Diversity” for The Vacanti created work for class for students to prac- Is Built” inarhythm. 20 years of accompanying a month developing the Routledge Companion the performance event tice community-engaged pressbooks.com. classes, teaching dance script for Leeway, a new to Dance Studies. Dr. Perception of the Self, teaching focused on as a guest artist, creating multimedia theater piece Tomé gave talks at the which premiered at the holistic and culturally in- Marilyn Sylla (FCD work and teaching drum that will premiere in 2020. Gabriela Mistral Cultural C32 Performing Art Work clusive models of dance Lecturer), will be retiring classes. Wonawali. Center (Santiago, Chile) Space in Mestre, Italy. education. from teaching in the Five College Dance Lester Tomé (Associate and the Center for the Vacanti also presented Angie Hauser (Associate Department at the end of Professor, SC), finished Humanities and Social his dance work Toccata Professor, SC/Chair), this semester. “It has been two articles on Sciences (Madrid, Spain). at the 2018 Corps ROBERT ALTMAN ROBERT

Angie Hauser, Christal Brown, Bebe Miller, Bronwen MacArthur performing in In a Rhythm at New York Live Arts

6 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER the national American/ Woman Project with Betsy Miller Dance, and ENTRANCES improvisational work Foreword/Afterword with Rachel Boggia and Annie Dr. Alexandra Ripp (Director of Five College Dance), is the DisTIL (Discovery Through Iterative Kloppenberg. Learning) Postdoctoral Fellow at Carolina Performing Arts (CPA) at University of North Carolina at Michelle Marroquin Chapel Hill, where she oversees collaborative, long-term projects between visiting artists and UNC (HC ’94, SC MFA ’10) faculty members, students and the local community. She also initiated and is overseeing The continues to make work as an independent dancer Commons at CPA, an arts-criticism-focused residency program and performance festival for and choreographer based locally based performing artists, which will launch in May 2019. She is a lecturer in Amer- in the Pioneer Valley. In the last two years she has ican Studies at UNC, and teaches about performance’s relation to site, audience and performed mostly solo context, in collaboration with the local performance laboratory Culture Mill. Over the works and in January 2019 gave herself a dream course of four seasons, Ripp produced and then curated the Ideas series of lectures, panels, vacation / artist retreat in and symposia at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut. She Seville, Spain, where she immersed herself in the has served as production dramaturg at both the Yale School of Drama and Yale Repertory history and culture of Theatre. She holds an MFA and DFA from the Yale School of Drama in dramaturgy and dramatic flamenco and, as a Mexican-American artist, Alex Ripp criticism, where she was a two-time winner of the John W. Gassner Award for Criti- delved into her own cism. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Princeton University, where she majored in complicated cultural connection to this Spanish and minored in theater and dance and Latin American studies. Ripp’s area of specialty, and the topic of her 2017 dissertation, is country. While she contemporary Chilean performance and post-dictatorship memory politics. She has translated five Chilean shows for professional U.S. continues this research in preparation for a new tours, and her translation of Trinidad González’s La reuníon was selected for the 2016 PEN World Voices Festival. Her translations and evening-length work, she is directing and writing on performance have been published in Theater, PAJ: A Journal of Performing Arts and Theater Journal and on Fusebox’s Written & performing in Art_ Spoken platform. Words_Movement, a series of improvisational structures that weave together visual art, poetry and kinesthesia. Described as a “consistent force” (Dance Informa), Barbie Diewald, MFA (Assistant Professor of Dance, Her day job is in rehab as a physical therapist Mount Holyoke College), is a dancer and choreographer and a 2018 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist assistant, and as a Gyrotonic/Gyrokinesis Fellow in Choreography. She was a lecturer in dance at Keene State College, and the Visiting Artist at Mount trainer at Lani Nahele’s Holyoke College from 2017 to 2019. She has been awarded residencies at Banff Centre (Canada), the Bogliasco Studio rEvolution in Foundation (Italy), Ponderosa (Germany), the Iron Factory (Philadelphia), Putney School (Vermont), Silo at Florence, Massachusetts. Kirkland Farm (Pennsylvania), APE Gallery (Northampton) and Chen Dance Center (NYC). Her choreography Laura Murphy (MHC has been presented throughout New York and New England, including performances at the Brooklyn ’17) recently celebrated her first anniversary with Academy of Music, Movement Research at the Judson Church, 92nd Street Y, The Chocolate Factory, the Center for Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Performance Research, Jacob’s Pillow, and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. Diewald holds a Robinson Lab, where she BFA from Millikin University and MFA from Smith College. serves as codirector of the Summer Academic Barbie Diewald Research Experience Program (SARE) alongside Dr. Douglas Robinson and coordinates the Johns Hopkins Initiative for Shakia Johnson, MFA (Lecturer in Dance of the African Diaspora, Mount Holyoke College / Careers in Science and Five College Dance), is a choreographer, performer, and dance educator whose work is rooted in the Medicine. Outside of Hopkins, Laura is a African Diaspora, focusing on Hip-Hop, modern, and traditional African dance forms. She is an MFA member of Kinetics Choreography candidate at Wilson College, she holds an associate’s degree in dance and psychology Professional Dance Company, as well as from Dean College, a bachelor’s in liberal arts from Westfield State University, and, she received the a faculty member at National Dance Institute’s teaching artist certificate in 2009. Her other dance training includes the Kinetics Dance Theatre and Stars Studio, where Bates Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, and Pioneer Valley’s Performing Arts Charter School. Johnson she teaches all levels of choreographed and directed more than 50 Hip-Hop, modern, African and lyrical works that have dancers in a variety of disciplines. been performed at Trenton Educational Dance Institute, Rider University, the Princeton School of Ellen Oliver (HC ’16) Ballet, and the Bates Dance Festival. She has performed for numerous Hip-Hop events and has opened is a dancer in Fusionworks for concerts by Fat Joe, Jadakiss, 112, Charlie Baltimore, and Kima from “Total” and Omarion. In 2005, Dance Company and Lorraine Chapman, she choreographed a Hip-Hop number for the Celtics/NBA half-time show. Johnson has toured The Company, and has recently performed for nationally and internationally, dancing with Face Da Phlave Entertainment and Illstyle and Peace Ali Kenner Brodsky & Co. Productions. And recently, she made a guest appearance with Renni Harris PureMovement. As a Ellen, along with a col- league, recently received dance educator, Johnson taught at the Bates Dance Festival for four years. Prior to joining the Five a 2018 New England Shakia Johnson Colleges program as a full-time faculty member, she served as an adjunct at Mount Holyoke, Smith, Dance Fund Grant from New England Foundation and Connecticut colleges. Johnson was also the 2019 Arthur Levitt Jr. ’52 Artist-in-Residence at for the Arts (NEFA) for the Williams College. ProviDance Project.

Jiehae Park (AC ’02) recently acted in Celine Song’s Endlings at the Jenna Riegel, MFA (Assistant Professor of Dance, Amherst College), originally from Fairfield, American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Iowa, has been a New York–based dancer, performer and teacher since 2007. Riegel holds an MFA in Massachusetts. Her own dance performance from the University of Iowa and a BA in theatre arts from Maharishi University of play, Peerless, will be at Primary Stages in New Management. Since moving to NYC, Riegel has toured and performed internationally as a company York next season (May 2020). She also work- member of David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller / Dances, Bill Young / Colleen Thomas & Company shopped a play of hers at and the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company. Riegel has taught classes in contemporary technique at Gina San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater in Gibney Dance Center, New York Live Arts, Mark Morris Dance Center and 100 Grand Dance. She has been May 2019 as part of its on faculty in the Dance Departments of Barnard College, The Juilliard School and Virginia Commonwealth New Strands Festival. University. Riegel’s choreographic work has been commissioned by the University of Nebraska Lincoln, In 2018, Stephen the University of Iowa, Barnard College and Colby College. She has also acted as répétiteur for the Bill T. Petronio (HC ’78) revived Merce Cunningham’s Jones / Arnie Zane Company. Tread (1970) as part of the Stephen Petronio Dance Jenna Riegel Company’s Bloodlines, a project established to revive works of American postmodern dance. Also in 2018, Stephen’s reconstruction of Steve Dr. Aston K. McCullough, Ph.D., M.S., M.A., (Assistant Professor of Dance Science and Dance Paxton’s choreography Science Laboratory Director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) is a contemporary/ from the years 1964–92 was presented in a improvisational dancer and dance maker. He has performed in the United States and abroad (live and on 45-minute program for film) for artists including conceptual experimental choreographer, Koosil-ja. Dr. McCullough studies human the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Judson activity in relation to health across the lifespan. He programs and evaluates methods for analyzing human Dance Theater: The Work Is activity and health-related signals within single and multi-person movement paradigms using sensors (e.g., Never Done. accelerometers, 2D/3D cameras, EKG, and others). McCullough examines associations between wellness Caroline Prugh (AC ’96) and dance exposures both quantitatively and qualitatively. Ph.D., Kinesiology, Columbia University; M.Phil., wrote the book for a new musical, ’Til Death Do Us Kinesiology, Columbia University; M.S., Applied Statistics, Columbia University Teachers College; M.A., Dance Part (music and lyrics by Education, New York University; B.A., Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College; Professional Diploma, Dance Studies, Laban Dance Conservatoire; Postdoctoral Fellowship, School of Public Health & Health Sciences, Continued on page 7 Dr. Aston K. McCullough University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 7 Bobby Cronin), which was chosen from more than 120 new scripts and scores for the San Diego EXITS State University New Musical Initiative. This innovative two-year de- velopment program helps musical theater writers develop a new work through a process that includes a reading (fall 2018), a workshop (spring 2019) and a full production (spring 2020).

Rebecca Steinberg (UM ’13) finished up her fourth season with New Dialect, under the direction of Banning Bouldin. In February 2019, the company premiered Bouldin’s new work, The Triangle, alongside the U.S. premiere of Roy Assaf’s GIRLS. As a choreographer, Rebecca has most recently been commissioned by Nashville Ballet, Middle Tennessee State University and New Dialect. Marilyn Sylla Daphne Lowell Joanna Faraby Walker Betty Thurston Mariana Valencia (HC ’06) received a 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding “Breakout” Choreographer RETIRING FACULTY EXITING STAFF (formerly called the Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award). Marilyn Sylla (FCD/SC Lecturer in West African Dance) It is a After six wonderful years, Joanna Faraby Walker, administrative Her citation read: “For Tuesday afternoon during my office hours, and I hear the familiar coordinator to Five College Dance, will leave Five College Dance seamlessly blending ethnography, memoir, rhythms of the music from Marilyn’s West African Dance class. I take to accept the position of managing director of the Northampton and observation of a break from work and slip into the hallway above the studio theater Center for the Arts. I was on the faculty search committee that hired cross-cultural identities to peer down at this fantastic class. There is Marilyn, dancing Joanna. We were extremely excited when she accepted our offer, in choreography that engages from start to full-out. I am in awe. Students are trying to embody that energy. What an and since then, she has brought a professional demeanor, deep finish. For a unique vision inspiration! What motivation to move!! And I am privately stepping love of dance performance and education and a joyful spirit to our that uses humor and sadness, reality and to that beat, secretly, in the hallway. consortium. Joanna worked to modernize and streamline the imagination to push workings of this office. She enhanced and expanded our public dance and performance When Charles and I first came to Mount Holyoke College, we image. She worked tirelessly to help coordinate the many FCD into new territory.” watched Marilyn’s class with admiration and witnessed her amazing threads and projects while improving the communication essential Helena Valvur (MHC ’18) performance during our first faculty concert. Marilyn had to go last to our operation. She has “trained,” supported and been an moved home to the San on the program because no one could follow her infectious energy invaluable colleague to three faculty chairs (including me). Finally, Francisco Bay Area after graduation, where she and outright professionalism. That was 24 years ago. she was a mentor, teacher and friend to many work-study students. continued to take class and worked as a teaching Marilyn’s energy, artistry and erudite expertise in West African Dance I am proud to have come to know and work with Joanna as a dear, artist in a community arts program. In April 2019, became a crucial element of our curriculum, bringing a depth of essential colleague. She is smart, talented, fiercely loyal to FCD, a she moved to NYC to cultural knowledge and an exceptional contribution to the superb listener, a tireless, immaculate administrator, and she makes broaden her horizons and cultural life on campus. Her willingness to perform for many college build new experiences in me laugh—a lot. I know she will continue to be a great friend and a new city. functions, including the kickoff to the inaugural BOOM diversity day am excited for the Northampton Center for the Arts and for the new at Mount Holyoke was never questioned. She always welcomed an connections between that organization and FCD that Joanna’s hire Erica Weiss (UM ’18) pursued her dance opportunity without question. Marilyn always said yes! will make possible. administration interests in NYC after graduation, Marilyn, thank you. Thank you for all you have done for the Dance —Rodger Blum, Chair, Five College Dance working as an office manager for a ballet Department. Thank you for your friendship and your positive studio and as an adminis- outlook on life. Thank you for your hugs and welcoming smiles. trative intern for the Mark Morris Dance Center. She is currently located We will miss you and wish you the best in this next chapter of your life. IN MEMORIAM in the Chicagoland area, where she is an instructor —Rose Flachs, Professor, Mount Holyoke College Betty Thurston, Administrative Assistant, Five College Dance at the Arthur Murray of Oakbrook Terrace. In this Department, 1983–2012 Betty’s bright smile and mischievous role, she is able to share twinkle were alive and well from the very beginning of her her love of dance with decades-long tenure at the FCDD. Her toughness and students of all ages and Daphne Lowell (Hampshire College Professor of Dance) Daphne abilities, as well as per- passion; her indefatigable, contagious belief in the value of our form on a regular basis in was my closest colleague at Hampshire for more than 30 years. She “five-collegeness”; her good humor, organizational acumen and the ballroom vernacular. arrived a year or so after I did, and we hit the ground running— institutional memory—all came to be the very lifeblood of the together. Our styles of teaching and administrating were different Debbie Williams (SC ’99) department, providing continuity and sustenance to the long line completed her PhD in yet quite complementary. When decisions needed to be made, we of faculty chairs through the years. As any of you who knew her dance at the University of did the big-picture brainstorming together, though Daphne was the Roehampton London in can remember, Betty always made time to really engage with each 2018. In September 2018, brilliant researcher and detail person gathering all the info needed encounter . . . to look you in the eyes and genuinely listen. I miss her. I she relocated to the Medi- to commit to a plan. My role was to keep track of deadlines. We know that her generous, intense presence will live on with me—with terranean, where she took referred to ourselves as “Bubble and Squeak,” though it was never up a post as a lecturer in so many of us—for a long, long time. the Dance Department at clear which of us was which! the University of Malta. —Jim Coleman, FCDD Chair and Professor Emeritus of Dance, Mount Her current research Daphne and I served on many Division II and III committees together, focuses on experiences Holyoke College related to nonprofessional and I never lost my deep appreciation for her insightful analyses of dance and dancers. students’ work. She knows just the right comments to make and Betty! I want to pick up the phone and let her know what stage of a questions to ask to help students move their unique visions forward. Whitney Wilson (SC MFA big project is engaging me now — and then be peppered with just ’17) is dancer in residence She is a brilliant teacher in the studio, whether teaching technique, the right questions to help me move it to the next stage! If neither with the Arts in Medicine composition, dance and culture, contemplative dance or any of the Program at University of of us had a ready answer, she would say, “Let’s ponder!” During the Florida Health in Gaines- other myriad courses she designed over the years. Daphne is years that I chaired the FCDD, not a day went by that I didn’t talk ville, Florida, where she demanding of others and of herself. She never does anything by half through the details of a project or a budget question or an agenda teaches dance classes that promote health and measures! Thank you, Daphne, for the years of colleagueship and for the department. When I was commuting between Amherst well-being. In collabora- friendship. I’m so happy to have you joining me in retirement! and Claremont, California, I knew my suitcase and shoes would be tion with the Neurology Department, Whitney is outside the studio door the minute my class ended so that I could designing a dance pro- —Rebecca Nordstrom, Professor Emerita of Dance, Hampshire College race to catch a plane! Always ready to help—whether preparing tocol for people with MS, for a meeting or decorating a Hampshire College apartment for which will undergo an official study next fall. She a guest artist, whatever needed doing, we were a team. I loved has also started a small Betty and cannot comprehend her sudden passing. Her zest for life dance community— Forum Dance Collective will continue to inspire me. I extend my deepest sympathy to her —which will debut its beloved daughter and son-in-law and her precious grandsons. May work this summer for the her memory be a blessing to all who knew her. Global Water Dances. She directed a video on the Parkinson’s Crane Dance —Peggy Schwartz, FCDD Chair and Professor Emerita of Dance, Project, which was shown UMass Amherst during summer 2019 at the World Parkinson Congress Art Walk.

8 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER