This past weekend Manhattanville College presented the 2017 Spring Dance Concert. This year was different from previous dance concerts because they did not feature any student choreographers who usually do a class called, Choreographer’s Workshop. Instead, this concert featured work from teachers Shawn Bible, Ara Fitzgerald, Manching Tom, Heather Cornell, guest choreographer Lawrence Goldhuber and Manhattanville alumni Yoshito Sakuraba. These choreographers brought a lot of different skills and technique to their pieces, making each piece uniquely different from one another.
One of my personal favorites of the night was Heather Cornell’s piece called “making Music, A Rhythm Study in Three Movements.” This piece consisted of body percussion, soft shoe tap and sand dance. These five dancers worked very well together as a team to help bring this dance to life. My favorite section of that dance was the sand dance. Hearing the movement scrape against the sand made such an amazing sound, but while still hearing the sounds of the rhythm was really cool to watch and listen too. Another piece I really loved was Lawerence Goldhuber’s piece “The Agonizing Terror of Everyday Life.” This piece really brought out a darkness of terror in life.
The costumes were white pants and blouse with white hoop skirts and dark makeup. This piece had a lot of physical movement with the skirts being on for the majority of the number. It was something very different brought to the concert and it was really interesting piece to watch. All and all the concert as a whole was a beautiful piece of work. Every dancer in show were strong individually as well as a team in each piece. I think everyone in the show did an amazing job and I am interested to see what the Fall Dance Concert is to look like.