Richmond Dance Festival Features Work Choreography by Davies, Inspired by Keen
A dance choreographed by Jenefer Davies, associate professor of dance/theater, will be performed at the Richmond Dance Festival (RDF) this weekend and will include two W&L student dancers. The RDF will be at the Dogtown Dance Theater in the historic district of Manchester in Richmond.
Replying to a national call for new dance choreography, Davies sent a video to RDF of “August and September,” a work she created last summer and fall, workshopped as part of a dance concert at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, New York, in January, and performed as part of a W&L concert.
The dance was set to poetry by Suzanne Keen, Dean of the College and the Thomas Broadus Professor of English.
“Dean Keen’s poetry was influential in creating and molding the movement choices in the dance work,” said Davies. “When I began creating this new dance work, I knew that her poem ‘August. The Trust About Play’ fit beautifully with my intended thematic material and expressed a relationship that I was eager to explore.
“As rehearsals progressed, the power of the words began to shape not only the formation of the architecture and negative space of the dancers, but the overall configuration of the piece,” added Davies. “Dean Keen’s generosity in discussing and describing her work and her suggestion of using ‘September. The Animals That Are Lost’ as a companion piece, became forces in my creative process.”
For more information about the Richmond Dance Festival, see http://www.dogtowndancetheatre.com/#!richmond-dance-festival-2016/cyun
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