Whether doing their coursework online, in person, or some hybrid combination, the dancers and choreographers in the SUNY Brockport Department of Dance have been working hard this spring, and the results of their studies are about to be shared with their audiences. Starting on Saturday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m., the MFA Thesis Dance Concert, will stream on an on-demand basis through April 17. Though the event is free, patrons must register online at fineartstix.brockport.edu to receive the link to view the performance. Once a patron has received the link, they may watch the concert at any time during the time the link is live. Donations will also be accepted at the ticketing site. Patrons may contact the Tower Fine Arts Center box office for guidance at 395-2787.
One of the two pieces featured in the concert is “Weighted Spaces,” choreographed by graduate student Jocelyn Schimpf. Schimpf says that her research was “centered on implementing a somatic lens of autonomy and mindfulness into dance practices in order to generate safe, efficient movement and promote overall health and well-being.” However, making the piece under significantly different – and challenging – circumstances than she would have ordinarily meant that “another layer of meaning developed while creating this work, stemming from our relationship to the pandemic. In the dance film, we circulate through a variety of spaces: the theater, home spaces, hallways, stairwells, outside in the grass, in the snow, in groups, and in solo experiences. It presents the cycle of where we started, where – ideally – we were supposed to be, and where we continue to navigate while maintaining a sense of community.”
“Well, Now That You Mention It” is a percussive response to the Miles Davis Quintet’s rendition of “It Never Entered My Mind.” Frankie Soldevere’s research “examines the racial misrepresentation of tap dance in the Euro-centric Hollywood films of the 1930s and 40s, and how it affects the portrayal of tap dance in social media and dance films today. [The piece] invites the social, improvisational, and interpersonal aspects of tap dance back into the medium of film to question and celebrate these two conflicting worlds.” Filmed in Albany during the pandemic, Soldevere wants you “to enjoy the rhythmic journey through time and space.”
More information about the Fine Arts Series can be found at brockport.edu/academics/fine_arts or on Facebook.
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