Performing Arts Department Chair Kelli Edwards has found creative ways for her Advanced Dance Choreography students to continue to learn and grow as dancers from the confines of their homes. For a recent assignment, students had a choice between creating a tight-space dance or creating a ritual dance.
Alli Reilly ’20 chose the first option, for which the instructions read: Embrace even more your lack of space and make a movement study based on a very tiny amount of space. No more than 3 feet by 3 feet. Your movement must include level change and traveling! And some sort of “big” movement that you would never think could fit in that space.
“Since remote learning started, some of my favorite assignments have been those for my Advanced Choreography class because of the freedom we have to dance in new spaces and incorporate film into our choreography,” says Reilly.
For this assignment she says, “I immediately thought of my closet. I propped my phone up in the one corner where it could balance on its own, and began choreographing with that camera angle in mind. I chose to dance to Billie Eilish’s ‘Hostage,’ using the piece as an outlet for some of the emotions I’ve been feeling as a senior during this time.”
