Dance! Dance! Dance! Film! Mendocino College choreography students turn the Shelter in Place ordinance into an opportunity to create dance on film. With the Mendocino College Spring Dance Festival 2020 cancelled, the nine student choreographers decided to transfer their new choreographic works to film for the first virtual Mendocino College Spring Dance on Film Festival. Eryn Schon-Brunner, Dance Instructor and producer of the dance performances at Mendocino College, says she is “delighted by the creativity that has emerged from the challenges that social distancing policies have imposed on the dancers. The students’ fearless flexibility and willingness to explore a new choreographic modality has produced exciting and fresh new dances (on film).”
On May 8, 2020, new works by choreographers Clara Carstensen, Yves Charles, Margarita Diaz, Traci Hunt, Kai Krasts, Paloma Rodriguez Irizarry, Hannah Nicole, Jonah O’Conner, and Megan Youell can be virtually viewed at /dance.
What can be seen? Here are two glimpses of what the Dance on Film Festival has to offer. LIMIT(LESS), by Paloma Rodriguez Irizarry, explores and penetrates the invisible barriers that we face. Her work challenges how the body perceives, interacts, and transforms these realities into movement. Paloma V Rodriguez Irizarry says, “LIMIT(LESS) is a creative response to the cancellation of the Mendocino College Spring Dance festival 2020, where I was going to present a different work, called “Death Flesh."
The Mendocino College Dance on Film Festival is just one section of the virtual art work that can be viewed in the Spring Student Art Show Virtual Art Gallery. Thanks to Ceramics Instructor Doug Browe and Graphic Designer Tony Novelli, who coordinated this virtual show, many different Mendocino College art forms will be shared, such as paintings and drawings, ceramics, culinary arts, theater, music, and creative writings.
Other by Traci Hunt is an “exploration of similarity and likeness in humans; a search to find out what we hold at our core that connects us all.” Traci Hunt elaborates, “This piece came about organically, and the shift to video definitely changed the course of the piece and its theme. Nevertheless, the evolution of the piece was fun to watch, and moving it to a video format allowed me as a choreographer to push the boundaries of what can be said through movement with the theme of likeness in mind.”
Traditionally, Dance Club Scholarships are given out at the Spring Dance Festival, when the hard work and artistry of the dancers is publicly acknowledged. A huge congratulations goes out to Clara Carstensen, who will receive the Inspiring Dancers Scholarship, and to Megan Youell, who will receive the Kayla Grace Chesser Dance Scholarship. Both Mendocino College Repertory Dance Company dancers have excelled in their art, by inspiring those around them and generously sharing their art form through performance and choreographing.
Don't miss out on the wide variety of virtual art that Mendocino college has to offer! Contact ebrunner@mendocino.edu for more information.
Photo: Limit(less) choreographed by Paloma V Rodriguez Irizarry