BWW Reviews: MTSU's Burgeoning Dance Program Shows Growth in Fall Dance Concert

Dance-the quality of performance, the merits of the performers, the creativity of the choreographers-at Middle Tennessee State University has certainly improved since the last time I reviewed the fall dance concert there. Of course, it was 32 years ago and the dance program at the university has grown by leaps and bounds since then...and I am no longer writing on stone tablets.

That review (written while I was a senior and editor in chief of Sidelines, the university's student newspaper) proved somewhat controversial and I was besieged with angry letters to the editor from the small, but intensely loyal, coterie of dancers and balletomanes who took me to task for being frank and offering up my honest opinions. Even today, the faint rustle of tulle or the sight of thin young women with tightly wound buns atop their heads can render me speechless and unmoving.

But it was that concert that first introduced me to Aurora Daniels, who remains my bff and confidant even today, despite her wishes I succumb to a quick and sudden death in 1979-which just goes to show you that even critics and the criticized can find common ground and get past their disagreements.

I tell you all this to offer some historical context to my association with dance at MTSU and to indicate I am uniquely qualified to deliver this pronouncement: Wow! Dance at MTSU is so much better than it was the last time I looked.

With the program now headed by professor and director of dance Kim Neal Nofsinger (unfortunately MTSU only offers a minor in dance, but the powers-that-be hope that a major is in the offing-something unchanged since the last time I tap danced in a studio on the Murfreesboro campus), the quality of the performances shows definite and marked improvement since I was 22 and you could only buy mixed drinks at "private" clubs in the 'boro.

In fact, there is a palpable feel of professionalism that permeates MTSU Theatre and Dance's Fall Dance Concert, onstage at the Tucker Theatre, through Saturday evening. Nofsinger's artistic direction is apparent throughout the selections that are performed and the design aesthetic represented raises the bar for the concert, particularly in regard to the exceptional lighting design of guest artist William T. Clow. The dancers, for the most part, are resolutely focused and committed to their efforts-although it should be noted that like any other student work, you see a wide range of abilities and skill on display-and the primarily modern dance works that are presented effectively showcase the talents of the dancers.

The program's ten works are highlighted in the first act by Cynthia Guttierez-Garner's evocative Parched (set to the music of Juana Molina), danced by Aaron Allen, Sofia Apuzzo, Miranda Denham, Mat Elder, Devin Hall, Amy Huffines, Drew Kerr, Katie McGaha, Hanna Pickard, Fernando Ramos Cintron and Kristine Ricketts. Guttierez-Garner's choreography challenges the dancers as they enact a story of self-control in the face of border control: They are obviously immigrants struggling to cross an expansive body of water to find a new life, their thirst for freedom and security set against their thirst for a drink of water-water that remains tantalizingly out-of-reach-which drives home the point of their exhaustive efforts. The expressiveness of each dancer is essential to the success of the piece, which is so beautifully crafted by Guttierez-Garner in a way that reiterates its larger themes without being didactic or oppressive.

Nofsinger's Adumbration, which means something of a foreshadowing, according to its definition, closes out the concert's first stanza with a dance that smacks of his creativity and the fluidity of his modern dance expression. Performed beautifully by the dancers (Aaron Allen, Sofia Apuzzo, Hollye Bynum, Mat Edler, Callie Johnson, Drew Kerr, Kyle Knight, Katie McGaha, Hannah Pickard, Fernando Ramos Cintron and Kristine Ricketts), it's set to Michael Gordon's composition that is somehow melodic despite the overriding sound of sirens that accompany the dancing. Frankly, Adumbration could be interpreted in a variety of ways, like most good modern dance pieces can be: it may offer a vision of a post-apocalyptic society (this is how I interpreted it at first blush), with the society's members struggling to find their place and to define their roles therein…yet, it could be set in a vaguely European society post-World War I or during the conflagration that came to be known as World War II (the dancers' costumes have a small red square on the left side of the chest that might represent a poppy or, perhaps it signifies the color-coded identification system of Nazi concentration camps).  Whatever its setting, it's a provocative piece for both the dancers and their audience.

Act Two opens with Guttierez-Garner's The Penguin, an excerpt from Southern and Baseline, which is light-hearted and somehow more spirited than what comes before it or follows (in fact, if anything grows tiresome about the concert is its sometimes too-serious tone). Danced to a sprightly composition from Don Byron, it's performed with a certain je ne sais quoi that is just fun, and ultimately accessible, by Kyrie Kerstetter, Paige Metelka, McKenzie Sadler and Takeisha Washington.

The second act is highlighted by the performance of the Holocaust-themed Yours, Faithfully, Holly Handman-Lopez's moving treatise on the impact of the final solution on a community of women who've shared their lives until history rips that community apart. Handman-Lopez's choreography is lovingly interpreted by the women who dance the roles and while the imagery can be heavy-handed at times (three blonde dancers become goose-stepping, Hitler-heiling Aryans in one movement of the piece), it is her use of recipes and cookery that underscores the horrors of the Holocaust with the gentle warmth of shared camaraderie, recalling the oral sharing ("Cooking of the mouth," some have called it) of recipes and stories of food and cookery among concentration camp internees. The women-Sofia Apuzzo, Hollye Bynum, Morgan Bass, Miranda Denham, Devin Hall, Katie McGaha, Hannah Pickard and Samantha Reed-bring the piece to rich life with thorough commitment and are joined onstage by Kyle Knight, who serves as the connecting thread throughout the piece.

Jenna Kosowski's Permutation, set to a score from Aspects of Physics, is an intriguing, even entrancing, modern dance that shows off the practiced control of the company's dancers (Sofia Apuzzo, Lizzie Harbour, Kyrie Kerstetter, Katie McGaha, Fernando Ramos Cintrol, McKenzie Sadler and Emily Tincher). And finally, Nofsinger's Migration, with music by Nigel Westlake, brings the concert to a close with a sense of hope, featuring the company's best dancers (Aaron Allen, Sofia Apuzzo, Morgan Bass, Hollye Bynum, Miranda Denham, Mat Elder, Drew Kerr, Rebecca Poole and Samatha Reed) at their finest.

-Fall Dance Concert. Presented by Middle Tennessee State University Theatre and Dance. At Tucker Theatre, Boutwell Dramatic Arts Building on the MTSU Campus, Murfreesboro. Through December 3.

Pictured: Drew Kerr, courtesy of Martin O'Connor Photography

 

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