Ballet, tap and variety at Spring Back

Dance concert has spirit, a jellyfish and a large spinning sieve

When the weekend became crowded with events and other performances threatened to divide audiences into small scatterings here and there, Spring Back emerged with strength. So much strength that this year's performance was one of the most outstanding performances in recent years. Audiences were treated to a fantastic, diverse display of dance as the annual Spring Back Dance Concert was launched in Warner Main Space to large, enthusiastic audiences.

Spring Back began with Elesa Rosasco's "Sylph on a Leash; Dances From My Living Room," in a gush of fluffy tulle, hot pink satin and ballet dancers. The performers onstage delicately played with wind-up dolls, lipstick, Barbie dolls and even danced with a three-foot Barbie. An inflated Dalmatian flew from above. The hard-core message behind the girlish play was about the pursuit of beauty, and the inherent self-mutilation involved in that endeavor. The striking composition spoke volumes in all directions. The performers danced en pointe, another message about the damage women endure. Different surreal scenes faded in and out as the stereotypes of women (waitress, cheerleader, bride) and main-stream commercial expectations for women were presented onstage. The piece was novel, but inherently disturbing. Rosasco packed meaning into a highly thoughtful and pleasing composition. And as the piece ended, a dancer poignantly spun around slowly, wrapping herself in chains.

Tap is a style not often presented in dance performances. That's what made "Tapestry" a fresh and spirited piece. Dressed in casual blue jeans and white tees the three dancers played off of each other's energy and rhythm. Calls from the audience burst out in amazement of the intensity of tapping. When the piece came to an exhilarating end first-year dancers Caitlin Medlock, Christie Schroth and Kerry Wee smiled broadly and laughed.

The next piece was more typical of the pieces that contribute to Oberlin's dance concerts. "Finding," a creation of choreographer junior Amy Beth Schneider, presented a trio of performers maintaining careful and graceful movement to the accompanying beating music, "Music for Pieces of Wood." The performers' lithe and agile bodies moved in complimentary and opposed motion, offering a balanced demonstration of style and strength.

"Choros tis Tatchas (Dance of the Sieve)," an impressive solo piece choreographed and performed by conservatory junior Steve Papavasilopoulos, was visually fascinating . Using traditional Cypriot music as his backdrop, Papavasilopoulos presented an amazing display of dexterity, spinning a large sieve while balancing a glass of ouzo on the sieve's inner rim. It was a magnificent feat, and was rewarded with spontaneous applause.

The audience then waited while a large, floating plastic and mylar jellyfish sculpture was hung from the ceiling of Warner Main Space to usher in junior Frank Shea's grotesque gymnastic feat, "Nothing but a Jellyfish." The lurching and spinning movements of Shea and partners in crime sophomore Tanner Mullen and Michael Clune (who waddled onstage as the sun and moon) added a different, surreal touch to the evening. Their comical twisted faces and contorted bodies, combined with some excellent contact improvisation, created a unique composition. As the plastic jellyfish descended on them at the end of the piece, Shea and Mullen became trapped in a tangled, fearful mess of plastic and mylar. Captured under the undulating lights in a manic state near suffocation, the audience was left questioning the dancers' fates.

"Breaking the Roof", a solo by sophomore Cara Perkins, started off the second half of the program. Set to a campy country music backdrop ("I'll Fly Away" by Carolyn Hester), the irony of Perkins' controlled movements was extremely well clarified. Perkins' escape, represented by a series of chaotic arm and body movements, gave way to a calmer resolution, after Perkins "flight" had taken its course.

Junior Amalia Drogaris' beautiful and fluid movements were the strongest part of "Moirologia: the words of (my) fate." Though lacking in energy early on, Drograis' somber lament grew later into an assertive statement about the cycles of life. It was made even more effective by the way she wove herself into the traditional Greek music.

"Group Theory" choreographed by junior Erica Litke, was a snappy group effort, characterized by decisive and assured movements by five female dancers. Their neutral colored costumes and precise movements were punctuated by Milt Jackson's "Statement," which set the mood of the piece like a stopwatch.

Certainly the highlight of the evening was the Dance Diaspora's energetic "Jazz ITULÉ (prayer)." As well as being the finale to a exceptional evening, the piece featured amazingly free and spirited African dancing to a live jazz band. It was a celebration of female spirit as well as an open prayer commemorating the dozens of great African-American artists who have given so much to our artistic heritage.

This year's Spring Back dance concert was an eclectic, uplifting evening. One can only hope that future dance concerts will have the freshness and vitality that these pieces so readily conveyed.