Few communities are more creatively adventurous than the Mid-America Dance Theatre at Wichita State.
In the midst of midterm season, most WSU students are adapting to academia’s typical narrative for success by putting their noses to the grindstone and completing convergent-thinking tasks. Student performers of the Mid-America Dance Theatre (MADT), however, exposed a different process of free-thinking and boundless imagination at the Student Choreography Showcase last weekend.
The showcase triumphantly opened with “This Empty Northern Hemisphere” by Gregory Alan Isakov, performed and choreographed by WSU senior Madelyn Dunne. Draped in a blue dress, Dunne coolly embraced the audience with a contemporary solo.
While the dance was conventional, Dunne fluidly used her body to communicate a breadth of emotions through slow, controlled hand gestures and graceful movements as she freely and maturely swept the entire stage.
Moving to the dips and rises in the music, Dunne tapped the floor playfully before strengthening her relationship with her hands and feet as she displayed contortionist movements, all while maintaining bold eye contact with the audience.
As Dunne bowed, Mina Estrada, the mentor for the program, whispered to me, “She’s not a dance major.”
Sophomore Cooper Green and senior Olivia Lockwood choreographed and performed “Sweet Sunrise” to “Sweet Thang” by Chuggie. The pair linked arms and applied a masterful mixture of swing, jazz, contemporary and undoubtedly something else that, when put in motion, produced a confident and alluring femme-fatale-meets-country-girl duet.
To establish the scene, lights exposed Green and Lockwood posing on the ground and deviously smiling at the audience. Then, they began a rhythmic finger tapping to “Sweet Thang”‘s arousing entrance — reeling the audience in for a spellbinding performance.
The dancers, wearing matching bohemian-style tops, then egged each other on as they harmoniously rocking back and forth to the southern-twanged instrumental.
After the the song faded out, the duet remained on stage. While maintaining a piercing stare at the audience, the dancers fell to the floor and slowly dragged themselves off-stage, folding over and over and over, until they finally reached their respective ends — seemingly unfazed by the tense, and perhaps awkward, silence that had gripped the room.
Estrada, watching in delight, cheered, “Yes, dancers.” You just had to be there.
Junior Charisma Brown flaunted a shimmering black bodysuit and red lipstick in “Fem. Mode,” reflecting the empowering nature of her jazz-dance solo.
Following a mix-up of “Lil Darlin” by The O’My’s and ZZ Ward and “Are U gonna tell her” by Tove Lo and ZAAC, Brown transitioned through two emotionally and physically ambitious dances, consistently heading the stage with bright bursts of energy.
Although Brown certainly had spirit, it lacked the originality and purposefulness that strengthened the previous performances substantially. Brown’s finale provided a fitting resolve, suspending her finger at the ceiling and striking a confident pose for the crowd.
“Between Her Hands” choreographed by Kimberly “Kimmy” Aguillar, and performed by Eris Bishop and Shawn Gordon, was an emotionally turbulent performance that addressed violence, despair, support and love — themes accentuated by the song “Between These Hands” by Asaf Avidan, from the film “Roma” (2018).
“Roma” tells the story of middle-class mother Cleo and her family, as they go about their daily lives in the midst of political maelstrom in the 1970s in Mexico City.
Similar to the movie, the performance does not directly address the context of certain instances, such as Gordon lugging Bishop on their back or in the movie when citizens riot against police officers. Between the two, though, the fear and violence underscoring these scenes are readily understood.
Bishop, dressed in a white button-down, and Gordon in a black dress, share a raw relationship that has, observably, been tested many times — the two army crawl toward the stage together, fall to their knees together and pound the ground together, experiencing a heartbreaking cycle of rekindling and undoing through unseen challenges.
Still, despite falling in and out of each other’s grasp, the two dance with certainty. As the song’s depth increases, so does the dancers’ determination. Through added background outcries from soldiers and the whistling of missiles echo between notes, the two powerfully dance in synchronicity, displaying grave, solemn looks to the audience.
To conclude the tumultuous performance, after the narrator sings, “Above your body, above the bodies, of everyone gone,” Gordon finally leaves the grasp of Bishop and disappears into the darkness of the stage.
But, If “Between Her Hands” never lets up — the next performance, “Friends Reunited,” never comes down. Choreographed by Charisma Brown and performed by Kaete Mokrynski and Sophie Achey, “Friends Reunited” relieved any tense feelings exacerbated by the previous duet.
Wearing matching red and blue flowy flapper-style dresses, with a feel-good song, “Be the One” by Dua Lipa, this performance felt like a remnant of the “Barbie” movie.
Mokrynski and Achey “meet” each other, brightly ooh-ing and aah-ing at each other’s outfits and hair, shortly before breaking into a cheerful duet in celebration of this kindling of their friendship. The dance felt uniquely jubilant, bringing the audience into a utopian reality where dancing is a never-ending celebration of friendship — infectious.
“Next Semester,” choreographed and performed by Abbey Littrell, is a depressed teenage angst-ridden performance that is graceful nonetheless. As “Next Semester” by Twenty One Pilots plays, Littrell uses technically difficult dynamic movements to express their attempt to break free of the turmoil they experience in this contemporary solo.
“I prayed those lights would take me home, then I heard, ‘Hey, kid, get out of the road!” matched the meaning of the dancer’s movements. Littrell is consistently beaten down, even fisting the floor in anguish. Finally, after thrashing relentlessly, lead singer Tyler Joseph cathartically sings “Start fresh next semester…” as Littrell finally slumps on the ground in fatigue — still filled with the same malaise.
Although it was clear Littrell failed to find success or make any new revelations by the end of their performance, they had moved the audience with their journey — emphasizing a worthy fight with the experience of human despair.
The next two performances, “The Lucky Ones” and “Love on the Brain”, shared a story of loneliness and yearning despite their observable drastic differences.
“The Lucky Ones”, a duet choreographed by Kaete Mokrynski, transported the audience to a vintage era riddled with chemistry. Eris Bishop — wearing white gloves, a red swing dress and Dorothy shoes — and Jyavon Hill — wearing a top hat and suit — delicately and intentionally prance with and around each other in this slow dance.
The duet’s melding of coordination and acting was the highlight of this performance, with caricature-like dance movements and expressions that conveyed a dramatic storyline, such as Bishop wobbling on a bench center-stage only to find Hill catch her, or posing for the audience in a dream-like manner.
While “The Lucky Ones” was theatrical, the vulnerability of the performance was left up to the audience’s depiction — unlike “Love on the Brain” choreographed and performed by Olivia Lockwood.
Lockwood, completely consumed in longingness, never acknowledged the audience. Through technically impressive movements, they swung and batted at themselves, making it clear that the “Love on the Brain” — whatever it was — was eating away at them.
As the lights dimmed for the next act, Lockwood, with their eyes closed, rolled over, still perseverating — with or without an audience or music.
The night concluded with a crowd favorite: “hello?” choreographed and performed by Andrae Carter, Cassie McAllister and Sam Zimmerman. The trio charismatically melded comedic elements into the performance, which, while at first confusing the audience, quickly won them over as they unanimously erupted in laughter and praise.
The act was swaggering and assertive, beginning and ending with Carter walking through the audience in search of a mystery phone ringing that had interrupted the routine.
Despite the ringing coming from a speaker, the group humorously eyed and thumbs-downed the audience in judgment before parading off stage — finally criticizing the crowd with Carter concluding, “It’s not cool.”
Perhaps the message for the audience was not only to get off their phones, but more importantly, to pay attention to the creative talent of students who are contributing to a rich local community of artists and visionaries.
