PERFORMANCES
Sat. Feb 8th 2025, 7:30pm
Sun. Feb 9th 2025 1pm
LOCATION
MYArts Starlight Theater
1055 E Mifflin St, Madison WI 53703
TICKETS
$25 General Admission / $20 Youth
($5 off early bird before 1/1/25)
Purchase tickets at isthmusdancecollective.org/tickets
(Be)Longing has been made possible with generous support from:
Special thanks to the movement arts studios that have supported this performance:
(Be)Longing is an invitation to belong with us and within yourself as you experience the connections that we make through the art of dance. Coming together around home being something we create together in community, the IDC member choreographers in (Be)Longing come together to present works that speak to their homes and their ongoing paths of manifesting better homes. Cultural and technical backgrounds that range from Classical Indian fusion to Flamenco, Contemporary Ballet to American Modern/Contemporary, seemingly disparate, stand in solidarity side by side both literally and metaphorically showing how the Isthmus Dance Collective is a home we have created together. It has been a source of trust, support, inspiration, community, friendship, professional development, innovation, experimentation, equity, inclusion, and more.
Weaving together nine works by independent IDC member choreographers are several screen dances that highlight our beautiful city and the dance that happens in it. For the first time, a screening of Timekeeper, a film by Aaron Granat of the Madison Arts Commissioned dances honoring the 40th anniversary of the Timekeeper sculpture by Robert Curtis, performed at the Shifting Gears Bike Path Dance Festival on Labor Day, 2023. Three other short films recreating Pina Bausch’s Nelkin Line will meander through the seasons and across the screen, bringing together dance enthusiasts from across our community. The Nelkin Line features 16 counts of simple choreography representing the seasons, performed in a slow march through iconic Madison views; one in the dry early spring, one in vibrant autumn blaze, and one in a snow and ice landscape.
We want to invite you, our cherished Madison Friends and Neighbors, out to MYArts this February to celebrate our collective brilliance - the communal beauty that we're continually creating as citizens of Madison. No performance is complete without an audience, but this one will not be complete without YOU <3
About the Nine Choreographic Works:
Swapna Srinivasan will present a classical contemporary dance portraying our (Be)Longing on stage. The dancers have chosen various professional opportunities for survival but the beat of rhythm is still alive within them in every music they hear. They are masters in different styles of Classical Indian dance but when they are together they are united as one; soulfully, mindfully, and heartfully united in the dance. That’s where they most Belong.
Tania Tandias Flamenco & Spanish Dance will be performing the Colombianas, a flamenco dance showcasing the colorful Spanish fan. It is light and playful with sensuous movements reminiscent of Cuban and South American dance styles. Flamenco dance and music made its way to the Americas and found a new home there. It changed by being in a new home and integrating influences from the diversity of people in Cuba, Mexico and the Basque country. It is a palo that was most likely originated by a famous flamenco singer in the 30's. This Colombianas piece is a fun and lively manifestation of a melting pot of different cultures finding community together.
In her new work “Crossing Water”, Raka Pushpanjali Bandyo reflects on those who have had to leave behind their homeland. Her ancestors were displaced by the creation of the borders of India and Pakistan and her own parents left India and made a new home in the US before she was born. With oceans separating continents, rivers and wars creating and moving borders, souls that must change their place and environment must transform. The vibrations of things taken from one world to the next help sustain a sense of self and belonging required in order to survive and grow.
Jen Costillo, a recent transplant from the San Francisco Bay Area is creating a new work about how time and injury are the enemy of any dancer. Dancers explore their own relationships with them in an environment of suspense. The disorientation of feeling estranged from one’s own body can leave anyone, and maybe especially dancers, in an unsettled, precarious state.
Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez is creating a new contemporary ballet piece set to the mesmerizing music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The composition titled "Fratres" translates to "brothers" but here is taken to represent genderless fraternal friendship. This abstract piece features six dancers performing Pärt's set of variations from the 1980 version for violin and piano. The movement and choreography are an attempt by the choreographer to capture the emotions and state of mind evoked by Pärt’s composition.
While not a story, Robin Pettersen’s “Requiem” is inevitably linked to her sister’s death in 2021. It is not initially an easy piece to watch. The music is harsh, the movement intense and a bit tortured. But, as with much pain in life, the mood eventually softens, the dancer becomes more open and we see that both can exist, and a new sense of home is created through the grieving process.
In a revival and expansion of a new work about parenthood, Erica Pinigis explores how new parenthood is a disorienting and isolating experience. And further, dancers as new parents are faced with changes in their bodies and work/life balance that make returning to work “as usual” nearly impossible. The systems that would need to be in place to support dancing parents of young children are simply not in place in our society. “Mom Village” deals with that struggle, the isolation, estrangement from one’s own body, the dance of balancing one’s own needs with those of stampedes of shrieking chaos makers, and a possible way forward through the creation of a “mom village” of dancing parents. The validation, grace, support, inspiration, and courage that comes from the mom village cannot be overstated.
Amy Slater, using an elaborate layering of costumes, explores how the dancer’s personality is transformed with the exposure of each layer. At times, this is approached in a comical way and other times with some darkness. Throughout the shifts of character that might represent the different roles we inhabit in life, there is the persistent interruption of the cell phone. The dance is an exploration of how we make sense of our busy lives with the many roles we juggle and how the constant demand of technology impacts how we exist.
Caitlyn Lamdin has taken the opportunity to reset “me | them | us,” a work originally created for the Shifting Gears Bike Path Festival in 2022. The piece explores feelings of imposter syndrome and calls us to examine which barriers to belonging are real and which are imagined out of our own insecurities.