Kinetic Expressions: A Dance Analysis

Kinetic Expressions (Kinetics) has been taking place at Berea College for 20 years. This year the team celebrated its 20th by revisiting a choreography that was performed at the first Kinetics and were very purposeful of who they allowed to choreograph in this production. This will be a critique of some of the dances performed; it will go into detail about each dance, analyze the movements and reveal the message. The opening act to Kinetics this year was the choreography that was performed at the very first Kinetic Expressions. It is called “Birdland: Revisited” and it was choreographed by Dr. Roy Scudder-Davis. This jazz filled choreography was a great pop of color its costumes black paired with either a neon yellow or pink accent. In the
The opening scene was the sound of the piano and deep blue lighting that became more illuminated as the head lights were turned up; the beginning for this piece consisted of various partners paused in one shape that they used the beginning instrumentals to move out of and into another shape facing stage left into the distance. In order to keep the focus on those that had random solos and duets, the choreographer, Taylor Caldwell, used stillness and the wings to her advantage. The lighting throughout the entire piece was one of a somber mood; no bright lighting, like a yellow or orange, was used in this piece. The music added to this mood of somewhat desperation by the lyrics in the piece “Let it all go, let it all out now”; although, there were lyrics that mentioned things of strength and I believe that there were movements used to show the feeling of letting all of these things
The only way to describe this performance is superb. Avery nice tough to the dance movement was the fact that she did not have music with words being sung. By only having the instrumentals, you were almost forced to pay more attention to her and the way her body was moving. She used the various level and paired them accordingly with the correct movement; this helped to tell the story. There was a moment when she was on relevé and posed. In my head these two concepts juxtaposed one another, because typically when you are on a higher level, in relevé, your weight is light and you movement is tall almost as if you are trying to be an extension of the sky but Sarah did not do this. In that moment, it looked like she was an extension from the floor; strong in her roots, heavy in weight and extending up to the sky via the ground. Her cooperation, and or relationship, with the long cloth she was using was mesmerizing. She controlled it well and moved as one as opposed to moving as two separate beings. The way she executed every movement was very technical and movement filled her entire body and space. Sarah performed with a lot of energy; you could feel the energy she had with herself but as soon as she looked into the audience you thought she was looking at you and that, in my opinion, is how you grasp an audience. There were many other great, good and not so good things that happened at this Kinetics performance.