Emanation — emerging out of the void, being a bright light in darkness, having hope and internal reincarnation. These are all definitions of emanation and what the choreographers are exploring for Elon University’s Spring Dance Concert.
Elon’s Spring Dance Concert entitled “Emanation” will feature a diverse group of dance styles and choreographers all centered around the various definitions of emanation. The show will run in McCrary Theatre with evening shows at 7:30 p.m. March 7 and 8 and matinees at 2 p.m. March 8 and 9.
Artistic director of the show and lecturer of the performing arts Jasmine Powell said emanation can have many meanings, from religious to scientific, and the audiences will decide what meaning they take away.
“The overall goal of using the word emanation is to be open to however someone wants to interpret which definition to use, but also staying neutral in the center,” Powell said.
The Spring Dance Concert has a quick rehearsal schedule for choreographers and performers. Powell said the plan had been for each number to have eight rehearsals total, but with snow days, some numbers only had seven.
Evelyn Ealey, a junior dance performance and choreography and strategic communications double major, will dance in two numbers of the show. She said short rehearsal time is helpful for building memorization skills.
“We only have about a month, so to get choreography in your body that quick takes a lot of brain power, but it’s a good skill to have for the professional world,” Ealey said.
A dancer rehearses a solo moment in “The Last Migration” by professor Jiwon Ha on March 1.
The show features works by four Elon professors, including Powell, as well as works from two guest choreographers, Wesley Williams Jr. and Kara Janelle Wade. Williams was brought to campus to teach a dance in just a weekend and Wade taught her piece over the course of the January term.
Powell said the show heavily features different dance styles beyond the commonly seen contemporary dance, including West African, Afro-Brazilian martial arts and some Cuban influences.
“You’re not only going to see modern dance in the Spring Dance Concert, which might have been historically done,” Powell said. “We’re going to do things differently and I have access to choreographers who do things differently and showcase what they are good at.”
Ealey said she enjoys how vastly diverse styles of dance are featured in “Emanation.”
“African diaspora styles on the main stage is a great thing to have at Elon,” Ealey said. “I think we should definitely keep doing that, and I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
Powell’s work entitled “Ethers Awakening” pulls on the concept of emanation as the idea of coming out of a dark void or black hole in the cosmos. The dance features elements which represent gravitational pull and includes images turned into video using AI, which simulate the cosmic pull behind the dancers.
“I love movies like Interstellar,” Powell said. “Movies like that inspire all of this, of seeing time passage, seeing distortion of pathways of either becoming or pathways of changing evolution of things going through a hole and not knowing where you’re gonna come out on the end.”
In addition, Powell’s work includes choreography in an Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance form called Capoeira embedded into the work. Powell said she got to teach a class on the style in the fall and added a diasporic element to her spring work.
For Elon dance professor Jiwon Ha, the theme of emanation came in the form of finding hope for humanity amongst the dark. Her work “The Last Migration” builds on a previous work for the spring dance concert two years ago entitled “2123 A.D.”
In the original work from two years ago, Ha said she was skeptical about humanity and ended the choreography with all the dancers dying to symbolize human extinction. This time around, she said she was inspired by the concept of emanation to have a dancer remain alive as a nod to hope for the future.
“It’s more of positive message at the end,” Ha said. “That’s something I wanted to try, because world is dark.”
The concept of emanation took the form of internal reincarnation for dance professor Lisa Hines. She said her work titled “And Then She” came from the idea of how certain situations can shape who we are as a person.
“I was playing with this idea of what is it to be reincarnated, but into your original skin. So you’re not reincarnated to someone different, right?” Hines said. “You don’t get a different beam or a different vessel. You are still who you are, but you’re changed somehow by the uniqueness of the events that you experience in your life.”
Hines said she and her dancers usually spent the first 30 to 40 minutes of rehearsals discussing the concepts and ideas she brought to them before jumping into movement.
“My dancers are such beautifully intelligent dancers that we were able to really spend as much time during our process, working on the dance as we were talking about these concepts,” Hines said. “It really made for community, in a sense, and that was never scripted. It just kind of came about by way of talking about a relatable topic.”
This show is the first time dance professor Forrest Hershey has choreographed for Elon. His contemporary ballet dance entitled “Visions of Emergence” has dances in pointe shoes.
“It’s not your classical ballet situation,” Hershey said. “There is a lot of floor work, a lot of sludging around the space.”
Hershey said the concept for his work came from the idea of dancers moving through thick sludge and moments where some of the dancers find light within it.
“Thinking about being these bearers of light, that within the darkness, there’s still always some positivity that we can rely on as a group,” Hershey said. “Sometimes that shifts between person and person. Sometimes one person will be the positive moment in the room, but then the next day, they might be back in the sludge and someone else was that positive light.”
For audiences, Ealey said they should take in each piece and find meaning in them.
“Just immerse yourself in each of the dances, because they’re all so different,” Ealey said. “Really just try to figure out the concept of each one, because I think they’re all very different.”
The show runs in McCrary Theatre from March 7 to March 9 with evening performances at 7:30 p.m. March 7 and 8, and matinees at 2 p.m. March 8 and 9. Tickets can be found on the Elon performing arts website or at the Center for the Arts Box Office. General admission is $15, and students, faculty and staff are free with an Elon ID.
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