Dance-theater performance engages themes both intimate and universal

A simple gesture can tell a story: the lips pursed and blowing over an open palm, the shrug of a shoulder, a leap, a reach, a collapse. These stories illuminate our relationships with one another — an intersection of unique lives in webs of wonder, whimsy and even grief.

The name of the �������� Theatre Department’s spring dance-theater performance — Encounters — captures its evocative nature. It’s directed by famed Costa Rican choreographer, teacher and researcher Rogelio Lopez, who has dedicated his 50-year career to the investigation of movement as a universal human expression.

“He’s putting together dance and theater to show an image or give a form for the audience to interpret in their own way,” explained Assistant Professor of Dance Neva Kenny, a performer and associate director in the work. “The audience may leave the performance with very different interpretations of what they just saw.”

The roster of performers includes five master’s students in music composition, theater and teaching and nine undergraduates from various majors. In addition to Kenny, Associate Professor of Theatre Elizabeth Mozer and lecturer Heidy Batista also perform in the work; Mozer is also an associate director and Batista a dance captain. Additionally, Kelly Fancher, a student in the cinema MFA program, is conducting an independent study to document and film the making of Encounters, focused on Lopez’s interdisciplinary creative process.

In his work, Lopez creates a theatrical environment he calls “the magic box,” where things appear and disappear and where the body speaks through poetic metaphor. The encounters of the title range from sporting events to the death of a loved one, as well as our relationship with nature, water and the teachings of our ancestors.

Lopez works with a genre known as dance-theater or El Teatro de la Imagen, the theater of image, in which the primary language is movement. However, the piece also includes live music, songs and spoken word performances in multiple languages, as well as multimedia elements. Props and costuming also play important roles, and the performance is appealing to audience members of all ages, Kenny said.

“The way I see it is that we’re finding a way to see the love within ourselves in everyday moments, and we’re presenting that onstage,” said Jack Ehrichs, a master’s student in music composition, who both performs and plays music for the work.

The performance brings the participants’ individual talents and identities to the fore. A Russian student reads a letter to her parents — in Russian — while Batista gives a monologue in her native Spanish. Jamie Eliana Papa, a master’s student in theater, not only dances but sings two songs: one in English and one in her native Filipino.

“There’s a very personal but also universal meaning to these songs — about art and communication, the idea of home, even alienation,” Papa said. “There are so many dimensions.”

Ehrichs admitted that he struggles with choreographed dancing. Lopez had him experiment with embodied movement — letting go of technique and finding freedom with the music. He gets to ride a bicycle, too.

In theater and dance alike, technique is important. But when onstage, you need to let your training carry you forward into the unknown, Papa reflected.

“Everyone has their own special background and we’re trying to draw on that, as opposed to trying to cram everyone into the same box,” Ehrichs said. “It’s opening up possibilities within theater and showing that you can make a special piece of art without following the rules.”