Every term, about 1,000 University students participate in dance classes offered on campus by the Department of Dance. From Ballroom and Ballet to Modern and African Dance, the School of Music and Dance supplies many opportunities for students of all abilities to inspire the dancer within. But the Department of Dance also provides opportunities for everyone – enrolled in dance classes or not – to come and watch the beauty of professional dancers at their fall concert, which will be held this Friday and Saturday in the Dougherty Dance Theatre on the third floor of the Gerlinger Annex.
This year, two guest dancers will be featured in the concert: New York-based choreographer Gabriel Masson and Portland dance artist Linda K. Johnson.
Although dance majors – there are about 50 according to Walter Kennedy, Assistant Professor and Publicity Coordinator for the Department of Dance – are not performing at this year’s fall concert, they play a major part in the production side of things. Students enrolled in the Dance Production class, a class all dance majors are required to take, are responsible for all of the backstage planning. From the lighting to program design and everything in between, these approximately 25 students are shown the importance of knowing every last detail that goes into a dance concert to prepare them for the future, when chances are they will have to do much of this on their own for their own shows.
“When you’re a dance major, one of the requirements is that you have to take Dance Production so you learn the technical end of what goes into putting on a show. For the most part, in dance, that ends up what happens. You end up being your own producer most of the time and if you have any skills in that area, it’s a wonderful place for dancers to make money because traditionally, (dancers don’t) wander into a high-paying job immediately after graduating,” Kennedy said.
Many of their dance graduates have been interns backstage at places, Kennedy said, because of the knowledge they’ve gained in Dance Production. That’s one of the school’s goals: to develop dancers who have abilities in a very wide-ranging way. They want to not only produce technical dancers, but to give their students the experience they need to negotiate the artistic world of dance on their own.
One dancer who has negotiated this artistic world of dance on his own is Masson, who has been dancing and teaching for more than 20 years. From 1997-2002, he owned his own dance company, Gabriel Masson Dance Company in New York.
At the Fall Concert, Masson will be performing a solo titled “The Day Before Tomorrow,” which was inspired by the ending of his dance company.
“I choreographed (“The Day Before Tomorrow”) when I was going through a huge change,” Masson said. “I had disbanded my dance company because it was too expensive and I was starting to investigate solo work. It’s about holding on to the past and about being afraid to change.”
Masson also choreographed a solo piece titled “Inevitable,” which will be performed this weekend by University of Oregon alumna Sarah Ebert. This solo, which was developed in 1999, was inspired by the death of Masson’s father. Masson describes the piece as incredibly physical and spatial, and is his personal interpretation of what a person experiences in the moments before death.
Masson and Ebert will also perform a duet named “A Story About Apples,” which was created this summer.
“Its genesis is about two years ago (when) I started thinking about why as a culture, we continue to hold on to this idea of the female being a second class citizen – so I started thinking that, you know, it goes way back. It goes all the way back to the story of this woman being created from a man’s rib and she becomes the temptress and she’s the one who creates the bad things,” Masson said. “And so I decided when I started to make this piece that I was like, ‘You know what? I want to rewrite that story. I want to make them equals.’ So it’s about recreating the creation story in my own abstract way, and they’re both tempted by the apples, they both deal with the apples and in the end they both get rid of the apples and move on together into their own equal (world). It’s about helping Eve get rid of some of her bad (reputation).”
Johnson, who has been a Northwest dance artist for the past 13 years, will be performing two solo works at the concert as well.
Although Masson’s biggest hope is that the concert is sold out each night, he also has some high hopes that the audience will connect with his dancing.
“I always hope when I do a show that someone in the audience just has some sort of transformative experience. In some way, the work either makes them think about something or touches them in some way, even in an uncomfortable way,” Masson said. “I mean, I don’t wish for that, but if it happens, then so be it. “
Seating is limited for the fall concert in the Dougherty Dance Theatre. The doors open on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets, which are available at the door, are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors.
