The Moving Arts Initiative
Bringing Dance Education to the Public Schools
The Community Dance Connection Theatre presented Bodies in Motion, Minds Engaged, its first concert of 2010, at The Lenfest Center for the Arts, Sunday, January 10, at 3:00 p.m. The CDCT’s cross-generational company of local dancers was joined by a host of guest artists whose combined energy created a show with a wide array of choreographic styles and theatrical experiences.
Contributors included W&L professor Domnica Radulescu performing a dramatic interpretation of an unpublished excerpt from her recently released novel, Train to Trieste. Choreographed by CDCT Artistic Director Nancy Saylor and set to the cello music of Stephen Katz, Radulescu’s theatrical reverie was supported by a full cast of characters (danced by members of The CDCT) who brought the imagery of the story to life as they moved across the psychological landscape of the stage.
Also appearing were Erin Aweau and Sean Courtney, members of the ENSO Ensemble, a contemporary dance troupe under the direction of Michele Sasse based in Washington Township, New Jersey. Aweau and Courtney presented Baggage, a duet characterized by a complex series of lifts, carries, and holds and choreographed by Sasse.
In addition to the chosen selections choreographed for the CDCT by Nancy Saylor, Emma Stewart, a former CDCT member now majoring in dance at VCU, premiered a choreographic study set on CDCT High School Company members Mauri Connors, Aaron Rachels, and Silvia Sheffield.
The grand finale to Sunday’s matinee concert featured a performance by over 50, sixth grade students from Lexington, Virginia’s Lylburn Downing Middle School (LDMS). The students prepared their piece as participants in The CDCT’s Moving Arts Initiative, a program established by CDCT director Nancy Saylor to promote dance education in the public schools. Though it has sponsored concerts, workshops, and dance experiences on a limited basis to area schools for the past 3 years, the Moving Arts Initiative at LDMS represented the first, full-scale involvement with the program by a school in Rockbridge County.
When LDMS principal Rich Dowd was approached this past summer by Saylor with the idea of providing a program of in-school dance instruction for his students, he was doubtful. “At first I thought, ‘no way it’s going to work.’” But as he considered the opportunity that was being presented for the students to explore dance and theatre arts and what that exposure might mean to certain children, he reconsidered. “Nancy was proposing an outreach to kids who don’t have the means to study dance or haven’t yet developed an interest in the performing arts. I realized this was a way to open their eyes. We could introduce them to new ideas and maybe a new way to be successful at something important.”
Because The CDCT’s Moving Arts Initiative offer included a provision for incorporating dance instruction into the standard classroom curriculum for any chosen subject, Dowd decided to match the Initiative program with LDMS’s language arts studies under the leadership of 6th Grade English teacher, Leigh Mayo. “Leigh is an out-of-the-box teacher and I like that about her. I wanted to encourage that and dance in English class is an out-of-the box idea. I knew that if the program had any chance of working, Leigh could make it happen.”
After a preliminary series of meetings between Mayo and Saylor to exchange course syllabi and establish SOL guidelines, the Moving Arts Initiative at LDMS was launched. It began in
early October this past fall, when the LDMS 6th grade class hiked to the Theater at Lime Kiln for an all day field trip. While there they took part in an interactive dance performance presented by The CDCT and were given a guided tour of the theater facilities. After lunch, the students worked on a related writing assignment and then attended a dance workshop held on The Kiln’s main stage before hiking back to school.
The Lime Kiln field trip was followed by a continuing series of dance and choreography workshops taught by Saylor in the LDMS gym on alternate Fridays over the course of the fall. Saylor designed the workshops to enrich the themes from Mayo’s 6th grade English curriculum—Tests of Courage and Growth and Change—and also focus on the grammar lessons being covered in each unit. Saylor guided the students as they applied basic dance theory to make their own choreography around their explorations of the meaning of the word ‘test’ and the feeling of courage. Saylor then combined and arranged the student choreography to create Tests of Courage, a full-length concert piece, set to the music of Rusted Root.
On Thursday, January 7th, the LDMS students took another field trip. They hiked to The Lenfest Center for the Arts on the campus of Washington and Lee University and, after a guided tour of the facility given by W&L Theatre Professor and Department Head Owen Collins, the students set and rehearsed Tests of Courage on the Lenfest stage for the first time. That afternoon, as a conclusion to their in-school work with The Moving Arts Initiative, the students performed their dance before a full house of Waddell Elementary school children.
The LDMS students’ Sunday, January 10th concert performance in Bodies in Motion, Minds Engaged served as an extra curricular bonus and gave them the opportunity to perform for their other friends and family members.
“It isn’t so much the finished product that’s important,” said principal Dowd. “It’s the journey getting there. They’ve learned to take a risk, and that it’s okay. This program brings back hands-on, interactive learning. It’s providing a life experience that [the students] can relate to, on down the road.”
Boxerwood Gardens and
The Theater at Lime Kiln
The Community Dance Connection Theatre Performs Three Steps
The CDCT opened its fall and winter performance season in September as featured artists in the annual Fall Family Festival at Boxerwood Gardens in Lexington, VA. For the event, CDCT Artistic Director Nancy Saylor chose to present a premier of Three Steps, a trilogy of dances choreographed by CDCT Assistant Director, Mary Lane. Set to the music of Bach, Corelli, and Vivaldi and danced by an ensemble of 25 dancers that included guest artists from Washington DC along with The CDCT Adult Ensemble and High School Company, the presentation focused on incorporating the choreography of the work into the environment of the gardens as a site-specific collaboration with the landscape. Working with solar architect Lee Merrill, Saylor and Lane chose the sites and the time of day for each of the three dances in order to maximize the natural “lighting design” possibilities throughout the course of the day.
In October, the company restaged Three Steps and performed for a full house at The Theater at Lime Kiln in Halestone Dance Studio’s benefit concert for The CDCT’s Moving Arts Initiative. For the Lime Kiln show, Lane unified the time and space of the concert piece while she expanded the use of transitional theatrical features to create a narrative for her athletically challenging choreography. “Because it’s an outdoor theater with three, multi-tiered stages, Lime Kiln has its own set of complexities and possibilities that choreographing for a normal proscenium stage does not provide. It was an exciting adventure.”
Summing up the experience, Lane states, “Three Steps was a culmination of three years of work that would not have been possible without The CDCT. The company members’ insights, problem solving abilities, and dedication to the project made the challenge of setting the piece in two entirely different venues incredibly enjoyable. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. I look forward to seeing how Three Steps will be staged in years to come, always knowing where it began—on the rocks and in the fields of the Shenandoah Valley.”
Being Creative at the Library
A Summer Project for The Community Dance Connection Theatre
As part of a 2009, summer reading campaign that focused on promoting the ideas of creative exploration and discovery in the library, the Rockbridge Regional Library commissioned The CDCT to create a show to be performed at each of the regional branches in Lexington, Buena Vista, Natural Bridge, Goshen, and Bath County.
Entitled Being Creative at the Library, the children’s program went on tour in late June with story telling, make-believe games, and a dramatic interpretation of the Carl Sandburg story Kiss Me, from his collection of tall tales for children, The Rootabaga Stories.
Emphasizing the powerful potential of the imagination to provide us with original ideas of value, children were lead through the process of engaging their imaginations in creative play, allowing plenty of freedom and space to think big thoughts. Through the course of the show, the young audiences were encouraged to use the library as a place to find stories and information that would give their minds the energy they needed to expand. At the close of the program, children were asked, “And how do you make those big ideas happen?” The answer: “You get to work. You start to create!”