ABOUT DANCE ENSEMBLE
Grinnell College’s student dance ensemble offers student dancers both the chance to dance for renowned choreographers as well as the opportunity to create new dance. Ensemble members study contemporary dance and related techniques and perform each semester. The company’s performances are produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance. For the 2010-11 season, the Grinnell College Dance Ensemble will focus on dance and community. Through our dancing, rehearsals, choreographies and performances we will investigate the following questions:
- How do we as dancers form community?
- Is an ensemble a community?
- How do we enlarge our circle to include other groups and individuals not necessarily associated with dance?
- How do our ways of working inform community in other contexts?
Fall performances will take place informally in the Faulconer Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition Culturing Community: Projects about Place as well as in other spaces on and off campus. The annual student-choreographed fall showcase, Fall Forward, this year entitled “Watch in Silence” will take place in the Drake Community Library.
During the spring semester, members of Ensemble will have the chance to work with guest choreographer Kate Foley in a continuation of engagement with the Faulconer Gallery installation “Ideal X: What’s Inside?” Foley will integrate the film, photography, and movement inspired by the Ideal X miniature shipping containers to create a staged work for the Department of Theatre and Dance’s mainstage production, Byways: Communities in Motion. The mainstage performance will also include faculty member Shawn Womack’s adaptation of “Arrivals and Departures” and 4th year student Aniko Drlik-Muehleck’s MAP culmination. Womack will rework her 2004 piece set in an airport for a new cast of diverse movement specialists (previously, it included runners, skateboarders, hip-hop artists, and tap dancers) while Drlik-Muehleck will present a cross-generational performance engaging the Grinnell Community’s memories and expressions of movement to examine relationships between communities and dance.
Membership in the Ensemble requires several things:
- A firm commitment to the rehearsal and production schedule. This semester, Dance Ensemble will meet regularly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4:30-6:30 pm. In addition, there may be some activities and rehearsals on Mondays as well as weekend performances.
- A desire to participate in and investigate contemporary choreographic and performance practices
- A willingness to share your dancing experience to audiences and other groups as well as a desire to contribute to a community of dancers.
Previous dance experience is not a must but certainly a desired qualification. In the past, students with no dance experience but with demonstrated potential for developing the skills necessary to dance have been accepted and have become active members of Grinnell’s student dance company.
