The Muhlenberg College Dance Program will present seven world-premiere dance pieces in its annual faculty and guest artist-choreographed concert, “In Motion,” Feb. 8-10. A new work by Guggenheim fellow Tommie-Waheed Evans, a queer Black dance maker based in Philadelphia, headlines the concert.
Each year, members of Muhlenberg’s dance faculty present a diverse range of perspectives on dance. Dance faculty member Natalie Gotter — the concert’s artistic director and one of seven choreographers — emphasizes the abundant energy which sets this year’s iteration of “In Motion” apart. Gotter says the concert will showcase the largest variety of styles ever seen on the Muhlenberg stage, including tap, contemporary ballet, punk, modern, diasporic dances, and hip-hop.
“This show is personal, explosive, and emotional,” Gotter says. “It will give the audience space to feel empathy, to learn something new, and to experience movement through all of their senses.”
“In Motion” runs Feb. 8-10 in Muhlenberg’s Empie Theatre, in the Baker Center for the Arts. Showtimes are Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/34754/production/1175037
The concert will feature a world premiere work by guest artist Tommie-Waheed Evans. His piece, “traces left within,” aims to “transcend time,” intertwining an urban street style with contemporary dance movement. “My mission is to create a radically collaborative body of work that speaks to human life,” he says. “The goal of the movement is to offer a path to liberation.”
Evans says he was raised in Los Angeles, “amidst racial divide, gang warfare and earthquakes.” His work explores Blackness, spirituality, queerness and liberation. He has performed nationally and internationally as a member of Lula Washington Dance Theater, Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Philadanco, and since 2004, he has created more than 50 original dance works that range widely in scope, length, tone and subject matter. He is currently an artist-in-residence at Philadanco and a faculty member at the University of the Arts, both in Philadelphia — as is his own company, waheedworks, established in 2006.
“We’re honored to have a brand new work by Tommie choreographed on our students,” Gotter says, “providing a curated intersection of ballet and Black dance traditions through collaborative work with students.”
Veteran dance faculty member Samuel Antonio Reyes has created the department’s first faculty-choreographed hip-hop dance piece. His street theater dance work “THE LEDGE” features both student and faculty performers. “Street theater presents hip-hop movement that portrays the struggles and the culture of street society,” he says, “from the neighborhoods of the less fortunate.”
The artistic director of Sanbrooka Productions, Reyes is a Philadelphia-based hip-hop artist and award-winning choreographer for theater, commercial dance and concert dance. This is his first concert piece at Muhlenberg, but he has contributed choreography to several theater productions, including, most recently “…And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi,” “The Threepenny Opera,” and “Miss You Like Hell.”
Elizabeth June Bergman’s choreography explores how different communities and performance genres have embodied the rebellious spirit of punk ideology. “Dance Punk!” travels in time to the ’70s and ’80s subcultures of punk rock, disco, dance punk, and ballet through the early 2000s hipster scene. “The work presents a vision of some of the many ways that people have ‘danced punk’ as a way to resist conformity, challenge the status quo, and find joy together,” Bergman says.
A dancer, interdisciplinary scholar and educator based in Philadelphia, Bergman holds a doctorate degree from Temple University. Her body of creative work includes improvisational performance, choreography for nontraditional sites, and screendance.
Tap choreographer Robyn Watson aims to “find new majestic discoveries within repetition” in her new piece, “rinse. repeat.” Through different tempos, time signatures, and rhythmic patterns, the piece examines routine and repetition, and explores methods for uncover innovation through repetition. “How does routine feel new when it is frequently repeated?” she says. “Is it time? Is it space?”
A native Philadelphian, Watson has performed with innovators and trailblazers in the world of tapdance, including Dianne Walker, Germaine Ingram, Savion Glover and the late, legendary Mabel Lee. She served as tap instructor for the Broadway production Shuffle Along and was a resident artist at the Painted Bride Art Center, where she began developing The Blackbirds’ Suites, a trilogy of tap dance narratives that address Black women’s identity throughout American history.
In “Not the Least Afraid,” Natalie Gotter and her dancers grapple with notions of risk, trust, and energy, in a collaborative, intensely physical modern piece. “We worked with the physical embodiment of ‘taking the next step’ and talked about the grief, joy, and the complications of moving on and letting go,” she says. “We have built relationships, looked to the future, and trusted our intuition to craft this work.”
A Philadelphia-based performer, choreographer, filmmaker, educator and researcher, Gotter serves as co-director of Muhlenberg’s Dance Program. She says dance offers her a way of engaging with socialization of the physically gendered body and of questioning human limits — whether inherent or self-imposed.
Inspired by the words of revered Black American choreographer Katherine Dunham and the music of Puerto Rican Latin Jazz artist Tito Puente, Anito Gavino sets out to tell a two-part narrative showing the spiritual connection dance has to roots in many cultures. The work’s title, “The Alchemy of Bantaba,” refers to an African word referring to a community’s traditional meeting place, often under a large tree.
“The entirety of the piece is rooted in Indigenous dance rhythms,” Gavino says, “affirming that dance is not a spectacle but a documentation of stories, investigations and emotionalities — and even a critique to speak on social justice.”
A Filipinx multidisciplinary movement scholar indigenous to the island of Panay, Philippines, Gavino focuses on Africanist and Indigenous centered dance practices, investigating jazz, Caribbean dances, Indigenous dances and their cross-pollinating intersections.
Heidi Cruz-Austin has created a work titled “Grief, it brings the need, the naked freeze,” which explores what remains after love is lost. “I was interested in digging into what happens internally when we navigate the aftermath of love,” Cruz-Austin says. “Each section of the piece represents a different stage of grief or loss: denial, anger, depression, and acceptance.”
A ballet performer and choreographer, Cruz-Austin has danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet X, and other prominent dance companies. Co-director of the Trenton-based contemporary ballet company DanceSpora, Cruz-Austin serves as co-director of Muhlenberg’s Dance Program.
Gotter says she looks forward to sharing the concert’s diverse range of perspectives with an audience. “All of the pieces are as unique as the choreographers,” she says, “highlighting the vast choreographic talent of our dance faculty members and the professionalism of our student dancers as they take on multiple ways of moving.”
“In Motion” runs Feb. 8-10 in the Empie Theatre, Baker Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College. Performances are Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults, $8 for patrons 18 and under, and $8 for students, faculty, and staff of all LVAIC colleges. Tickets and information are available at 484-664-3333 or https://ci.ovationtix.com/34754/production/1175037
