Students impress at The Contemporary Dance Concert

 

Dancer-choreographer Thaihoa Nguyen rehearses "Soiled Ground" for the Contemporary Dance Concert at Cal State Long Beach.
Press-Telegram - Dances explore human interation 

 Drama, passion, and technique - three elements that made up The 2011 Contemporary Dance Concert at California State University Long Beach.

The CSULB dance department put their undergraduate dancers on display at the concert that ran from Thursday Feb. 24 through the 27. The concert contained 9 works total, and all of the pieces were choreographed by the same students that were performing in the show. The dancers put their blood, sweat, and tears into each dance, and unveiled the culmination of their efforts to the audience; and many were impressed.

Jimmy Cabrera, a communications major who was formerly a dance minor, attended the concert for his intermediate modern dance class.

"Overall this dance concert differed greatly from past concerts I’ve attended here at CSULB," said Cabrera. "It was much longer in duration, and had a much more serious tone throughout. Each piece in this concert was choreographed by the undergraduate dance majors, but the creativity and heart that was poured into each of the works was on par with that of the faculty dance concerts."

While it was an impressive show all around, of course specific dances stood out to some more than others. The concert really had something for everyone, with the occasional light-hearted piece, and much more darker pieces. While they were all unique and touched everyone differently, Cabrera couldn't help but pick favorites.

"A few pieces really stood out to me," said Cabrera. "One piece that stood out was 'The Blame Game,' choreographed by Yu Kondo and inspired by Edward Albee’s play ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.’ It was a dark and twisted somatic representation of his classic story, and Kondo clearly and cleverly translated a complex piece of literature into the language of movement- quite a challenge for any artist."

While he was drawn toward “The Blame Game,” he couldn’t help but gush about another piece that really touched him.

“Momoko Ishikawa created an abstract piece entitled ‘F = G(Mm/r2),’” said Cabrera. “It was an all male dance about Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, and every movement phrase made complete sense in my own interpretation. I could see the logic behind Ishikawa’s decisions throughout the dance and in the end it was perfectly satisfying. There were orbits and cosmic disruptions which are typically stuff of which dance is made. The strength of this dance concert was all about these young, budding artists taking risks and showing an individual perspective to their eager audience.”

The 2011 Contemporary Dance Concert was a success, and made fans of many who had never witnessed live dance before. While the dancers had to put in immense amounts of rehearsal, the concert debuted all of the hard-work that went on behind the scenes, and truly was an artistic display to remember.

UPDATE: The Press Telegram has removed their story, but a copy of a portion of the original can be found at http://robocaster.com/presstelegram/podcast-episode-home/lifestyle-ci_17475191/dances-explore-human-interaction.aspx.