Dance guest artists teaching at Bennington

Image is of Tania Isaac, from taniaisaacdance.org.

This article first ran on the Bennington website in the spring of 2007. Although the guest artists mentioned below visited for that particular term, dance guest artists are a regular and ongoing part of dance at Bennington, with students able to work alongside acclaimed professionals who are also engaged in the process of making new work.

 “A physically explosive, sensual marriage of modern and Caribbean esthetics: part personal documentary and part social commentary.”

“Using contemporary and turn-of-the-century ballroom dances…We will recompose the built material, playing with subtlety and timing…”

“Our practice is rooted in African contemporary dance forms, which are informed by western techniques. We follow the pulse of the heart, which beats like an African drum.”

Three distinct ways of dancing—all converging at Bennington this term.

The sentences above come from spring course descriptions by four dance guest artists: Tania Isaac, originally from St. Lucia; Jennifer Nugent, originally from Miami; and Gregory Maqoma and Luyanda Sidiya, originally from South Africa.

“Poetry in motion”: That’s what one reviewer called Maqoma, who is the founder and artistic director of Vuyani Dance Theatre (a company that includes Sidiya). The work of Tania Isaac prompted the Washington Post to say that she “walks as if sand and water coursed through her veins.” And another reviewer, speaking of Nugent’s performances with dancer Paul Matteson, calls them an “innovatively beguiling duo... who bounce off each other as if they were in a particle accelerator.”

“The thing we were looking for from these guests,” says Terry Creach, associate dean for academic affairs and a dance faculty member, “is not simply traditional forms, but [an exploration of] ‘what is a contemporary person doing these days with the traditional form?’

“We decided to structure each of the classes in a seven-week intensive format so we could offer different kinds of world dance—to bring the world to us in a way that supports our basic mission, which is the creation of new work.”

The creation of new work is, indeed, at the center of dance at Bennington. All the regular dance faculty are also professional dancers in their own right, teacher-practitioners working alongside students in the creation of their own original dances. And each of the guest artists will be teaching both a technique class and a performance project. In the latter, students will create and perform a dance piece under the guidance of the guest artist. In Maqoma’s performance project, students will be involved in the reconstruction and re-working of a piece from the repertory of Vuyani Dance Theater.

Since the early years of the College, dancers have gathered at the weekly Dance Workshop, a forum where students and faculty can show works-in-progress, screen dance films, and participate in workshops with visiting artists. This spring, Dance Workshop will also provide the space for each of the dance guest artists to hold an informal “Meet the Artist” session, in which they will present excerpts of the in-progress dances and answer questions about their work.

To invite guest dance artists to teach intensives is “an experiment we’ve had in the back of our minds for a long time,” Creach says. He adds that now that the idea has come to fruition, students are excited to have the opportunity to study with dancers from such divergent backgrounds and styles. “Some students,” he says, “signed up for absolutely every class.”

More:

• Dance at Bennington
• Spring 2007 Curriculum (all disciplines)
• Tania Isaac Dance
• Vuyani Dance Theatre
• Nugent+Matteson Dance

Click here to browse the archive of campus feature stories.