It is official: Spring has sprung. Its blooms are blossoming, its fragrances are flying, and dancers are heralding its arrival on the Cohen Auditorium stage. Tonight at 8:30 p.m., Sarabande, Tufts' repertory dance ensemble, will again perform its show of this semester, entitled "Spring Has Sprung," which debuted last night. This tribute to the season could not come at a more apt time, considering the way spring has paraded onto campus this week, carrying on its coattails a lawn full of sunbathing students and a nagging inability to focus on school work.
Sophomore Toka Beech, a dancer and the interior producer for the show, was relieved that the weather cooperated with the theme. "We were really worried when it rained on Sunday. We were thinking, ‘Oh God, please let it get nicer for the show!'" Beech said. "And then, luckily for us, it did! So the theme makes perfect sense."
Though the theme for Sarabande performances never emerges until all of the pieces are complete, the dances in this show coalesce perfectly to evoke the season. With hips that plié and pop under flouncy skirts, the dancers evoke the carefree lightheartedness of spring, though some pieces do so with a tongue−in−cheek whimsy. A cheerful piece by senior Phoebe Pickering, the group's president, set to Meaghan Smith's "Here Comes Your Man" (2008) pays homage to the romance in spring's air.
"In the past, we've had more muted or mellow pieces, but this time we have a lot of light−hearted, happy, energetic dances," Pickering said. "It's a happy, feel−good show."
Pickering also said that this semester's show is very physical. Many of the dances boast impressive displays of technique, including complicated lifts that seem all the more impressive considering that the female dancers are all lifting other dancers of equal size.
Junior Alyza DelPan−Monley, a seasoned dancer and choreographer, said that when she initially proposed some of her ideas, the dancers were incredulous. "I envision the way I want bodies to move," DelPan−Monley said. "But when I explained it to my dancers, they looked at me and were like, ‘You want us to do what?'"
Junior Molly Schwartz, who has danced with Sarabande for five semesters and also has choreographed, said that this semester's repertoire has presented more challenges than ever before. "I've never been as challenged by any dance as I have been by this year's dances," Schwartz said.
The show is not only physically arduous, but also emotionally exigent. Sarabande comes of age in this show, displaying a mature sense of movement and emotion without losing the rosy−cheeked enthusiasm of youth. Schwartz's eccentric, literal take of Ingrid Michaelson's "Keep Breathing" (2008) causes the heart to pause with its hard, truthful look at human relationships. In this and several other dances, the participants collectively demonstrate a range of emotion that is difficult to cultivate individually, let alone in a group.
"That is something unique about Sarabande," Pickering said. "Because we're so small, we're really close and have developed a level of trust sometimes missing in other campus groups. The respect and affection among us is really remarkable."
No one has experienced the maturation process better than the group's seniors, who perform a retrospective on the experiences of the past four years to a Backstreet Boys mix. Pickering said that for her and the other seniors, this performance brings with it a considerable amount of nostalgia and feels somewhat bittersweet. Yet, while many talented members will take their last bows this semester, Sarabande continues to burgeon with new talent. Beech and freshman Lauren Miller, both in only their second semester in Sarabande, co−produced the show.
"It's my favorite thing on campus," Beech said. "Dance has been a huge part of my life since I was young, and to come to college and lose that would leave a huge hole in my life. With Sarabande, I can be involved in dance again, and I've made 17 wonderful friends in the process."
Sarabande is only one of many groups dedicated to dance at Tufts, most of which will be performing in between Sarabande dances tonight.
Sarabande's show will also include performances from other Tufts dance groups including Spirit of Color, Tufts Dance Collective, La Salsa, Ballroom, Tap Ensemble, Garba, Tamasha and Blackout. The ballroom club's performance, set to "Time" (2007) by Chantal Kreviazuk, has a wistful gracefulness that attests to the wide range of talent at Tufts, and the TDC dance chosen to perform earlier in the show elicits a laugh−out−loud response. Another special guest performance by Static Noyze — which has two members in Sarabande — a group that appeared on "America's Best Dance Crew," will amp up the energy of the show with its electric atmosphere, political undertones and sensual scenes.
The all−cast dance is a literal depiction of the four seasons. Summer dangles its bare legs off the stage, sizzling and spinning in bathing suits, while autumn soothes and swirls beneath sweaters and plaid scarves. Winter saunters in various shades of grey, whisking senior dancers gracefully through reflective frames of movement, and finally spring bounces and branches through the air with a no−nonsense whimsy that brings the entire troupe of seasoned dancers onto the stage. DelPan−Monley, one of the dance's three choreographers, said that the songs for this dance were carefully chosen to fit each season.
"For this piece, we tried to find music that grasped what the season meant to each of us," DelPan−Monley said. "Choreography is about bringing something external to what the choreographer feels internally about the song. It's not about making the dance edgy or modern, but more about finding the uniqueness in the song and fitting the dance to that."
The Sarabande show is at 9 p.m. on Thursday and at 8:30 p.m. on Friday night. Tickets are available in the Cohen Box Office and are free with a Tufts I.D., and $5 without.
