2008 Woodie Awards
Dance Students Excitedly Approach 'Finishing Lines'
Joan Kubicek
Issue date: 4/14/05 Section: Arts
- Page 1 of 1
The dance major at Smith can be a struggle at times. Pushed to mental limits in their academic classes, dancers must then sacrifice countless afternoon hours to practice, rehearsals, tech set-up and choreography, sore muscles and exhaustion filling their days. This has been college life for the five women who participate in the senior dance concert, "Finishing Lines," performed from April 14 to 16 in the Scott Gym Studio.
As difficult as this sort of life can become, it is something that none of the women in the show would give up for a more orthodox college experience. "Dance is school for me," remarked Meaghan P. Kennedy '05. For these students, dance is not just another extracurricular activity, but a full-fledged academic pursuit -- one that the Five College dance program allows students to engage in at all of the colleges within the consortium.
"Smith can only have so many professors," says Johnna Birri AC '05. "It's great to be able to work with other professors and here, the people in the master's program."
Over the course of their years at Smith, dance becomes a major academic focus, and it begins to be a lens through which other academic work is viewed, a filter that allows for fascinating interdisciplinary thought and work. "Paradigmatically, it is different, the process of writing a paper and choreographing a piece," says Kennedy, whose piece also serves as part of a larger thesis that incorporates elements of her double major in women's studies. An attempt to reconcile the concept of objectification within the digitized, divorced images of women's bodies and their engagement in powerful acts of motion and dance, her piece is only a third of a larger project addressing this dichotomy.
Government and dance double major Michelle Ross '05 faces a similar project, incorporating the concept of politics as performance into her piece, tying the two disparate disciplines together. Nicolette Bartolini '05, an Anthropology major and the only choreographer not officially affiliated with the dance department - having neither a major nor minor - has also brought her academic experiences to bear on her piece, including the cultural dance classes that she has taken at Smith.
The powerful culmination of their years dancing at Smith, the senior dance concert is a major requirement for some, a part of a larger project for others, and for all, another opportunity to choreograph and display their talents, showing that in the end, the stress and the balancing act, the late nights practicing and sleepless nights were worth it.
Nicolette Bartolini, Johnna Birri, Meaghan P. Kennedy, Michelle Ross and Sara Gregory will perform in the senior dance concert, "Finishing Lines," from today through Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6, discounted to $4 for students and senior citizens.
As difficult as this sort of life can become, it is something that none of the women in the show would give up for a more orthodox college experience. "Dance is school for me," remarked Meaghan P. Kennedy '05. For these students, dance is not just another extracurricular activity, but a full-fledged academic pursuit -- one that the Five College dance program allows students to engage in at all of the colleges within the consortium.
"Smith can only have so many professors," says Johnna Birri AC '05. "It's great to be able to work with other professors and here, the people in the master's program."
Over the course of their years at Smith, dance becomes a major academic focus, and it begins to be a lens through which other academic work is viewed, a filter that allows for fascinating interdisciplinary thought and work. "Paradigmatically, it is different, the process of writing a paper and choreographing a piece," says Kennedy, whose piece also serves as part of a larger thesis that incorporates elements of her double major in women's studies. An attempt to reconcile the concept of objectification within the digitized, divorced images of women's bodies and their engagement in powerful acts of motion and dance, her piece is only a third of a larger project addressing this dichotomy.
Government and dance double major Michelle Ross '05 faces a similar project, incorporating the concept of politics as performance into her piece, tying the two disparate disciplines together. Nicolette Bartolini '05, an Anthropology major and the only choreographer not officially affiliated with the dance department - having neither a major nor minor - has also brought her academic experiences to bear on her piece, including the cultural dance classes that she has taken at Smith.
The powerful culmination of their years dancing at Smith, the senior dance concert is a major requirement for some, a part of a larger project for others, and for all, another opportunity to choreograph and display their talents, showing that in the end, the stress and the balancing act, the late nights practicing and sleepless nights were worth it.
Nicolette Bartolini, Johnna Birri, Meaghan P. Kennedy, Michelle Ross and Sara Gregory will perform in the senior dance concert, "Finishing Lines," from today through Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6, discounted to $4 for students and senior citizens.