Sarabande dance troupe continues to enthrall Tufts community

Cohen Auditorium once again assumed its role as artistic venue on Saturday night, this time for dance troupe Sarabande's semester culmination performance, Kick Your Feet Up! , which featured guest performances by TURBO and the Tufts Dance Collective (TDC).

The show opened with a lively jig titled "Kick Your Feet Up!" that featured all members of the company dancing in unison. The premier act successfully managed to harness the energy level of the enthusiastic show-goers and was received with strong cheers and applause. It marked the commencement of an evening that successfully mixed different dance styles and musical genres in a wide-ranging demonstration of the ensemble's strengths and individuality.

The program made good use of Sarabande's wide range of talents, proving to be well-spaced between the more modern interpretive numbers and more traditional dances featuring tap or ballet. Daphne McCurdy, Beth Mochizuki, Amy Reid, Natasha Pittman, Jeanette Bailey, Erica Cruz, and Li Ouyang all performed short ballet solos to various orchestral pieces, and Christine Ash, Stephanie Cohen, and Kaitlin Toner delighted the audience with their rendition of the tap dance "Steam Heat."

"I think my favorite dance of the evening was the one from The Pajama Game," said Brad Keller, a visiting student from MIT who came to the performance to support one of his friends. "I just really thought it was neat, and it was really different from the rest of the show."

The other more modern dance pieces were greeted with equally animated receptions as Sarabande managed to showcase the incredible range and talent that their ensemble possesses. Every member of the group has the inherent grace and exceptional ability that makes watching them such a delight, each conveying a powerful stage presence that transcends the traditional limits of modern dance.

Notable among the performances was "Four Women," an interpretive dance choreographed by Pittman that featured Ouyang, Oni Brown, Kaitlin Toner, and Pittman. "Chamma Chamma," a Hindi dance performed by ten members of the ensemble decked in bedazzling traditional Hindu costumes also stood out.

"When Doves Cry" proved to be a powerful statement of unity, demonstrating the strength of the entire ensemble and the minimalistic costumes and lighting contributed to the mood of the piece.

The evening also featured two other Tufts dance ensembles, the TDC and TURBO, the University's break dancing group. TDC, resplendent as always in their plain ties and fedoras, performed to Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" and TURBO, though less well-known than their fellow performance companies, performed a six-member freestyle break dancing improvisation that was greeted with a tremendous reception.

The audience was riveted during the series of back flips, handstands, head spins, and feats of acrobatic bravado displayed by the group, interrupting them several times with enthusiastic applause.

"I loved Sarabande, but I really liked the other groups too," Farah Tarhamoulin said. "It was neat to see all the different people together because they all have such a unique style of dance, and it was just really fun to see."

The show concluded with a farewell performance by Sarabande's current seniors, Brown, Mochizuki, Reid, Lydia Guaraldi, Rebecca Licht, Moira Murphy-Cairns. The touching piece, performed to "Emotion" by Destiny's Child, provided a cap to the evening as the graduating members bid their goodbyes to the group and to the University in their own unique manner.

"It was very well-done overall, just a well-done show," said Jeanette Langley, one of the many enthusiastic audience members. "I thought it was great how they spaced the different types of pieces out, and I especially liked the Indian dance."

At the end, after a final "Nighty-Night" performance featuring all the members of Sarabande in their pajamas, this much seemed clear: the dance community is alive and strong at Tufts University.