The Tower Dancers celebrate their 15th annual dance recital this weekend with live music performed by students of the music department.
Performances are Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m., in the Markel Auditorium at the Sage Center for the Arts. Call 517-607-2848 or email sageboxoffice@hillsdale.edu to reserve your free tickets.
The recital, which consists of seven pieces performed to live music, and one performed in silence, will take place during Parents’ Weekend. The dance company has only performed to live music once before, when it was accompanied by the percussion ensemble several years ago. The silent dance, called “Water Study,” was choreographed by Doris Humphrey in 1928 and reset by Lecturer in Theatre and Dance Jillian Hopper.
Director of Tower Dancers Holly Hobbs explained why the dancers will perform Humphrey’s piece in this year’s show.
“It will be the 90th anniversary of the Doris Humphrey Dance Company, and it’s a great honor for us to be able to present her work that is so historically important,” Hobbs said.
According to Hobbs, Humphrey’s choreography was revolutionary for her time — and is still taught today, almost 100 years later.
Senior Rachel Watson, Tower Dancers choreographer, said dancing in silence for “Water Study” is a challenge.
“People talk a lot about how dancers are instruments, but you really don’t think a lot about it until you’re the only instrument available,” Watson said. “The music is our bodies.”
Choreographing to live music wasn’t easy either, according to Watson.
“It was pushing me to learn something new. I had the music and the experience with the woodwind quartet and tools I’d learned from previous choreography classes, and I just had to go and create things,” Watson said.
Senior and Tower Dancers member Elizabeth Garner said the live music that will accompany the rest of the pieces can make preparation difficult for the artists, as their movements are subject to the musicians’ timing.
“Live music, from the perspective of the dancer, changes everything,” Garner said. “You really have to be ready for the tempo to change at any point, and that affects our timing, our balance, our artistry, because you can’t predict what the musicians will do. But it also makes it very exciting as a performer, to know that this is all happening in the moment, and no two performances will be the same.”
Garner, who will be dancing for the fourth and final time with the company, encouraged all students — even those will little interest in dance — to come to the performance.
“This is a very unique opportunity to see music and dance merge onstage,” Garner said. “I think even if people don’t usually come to dance productions, there’s something for them to enjoy and appreciate at our concert.”