Dear family and friends,

Thank you for attending the 2024 Reflections guest choreographers showcase. This concert represents an exciting and evolving initiative for the Dance Division: inviting guest artists to work with our dancers over a short period of time in the creation of new works. The compressed timeline of this highly intensive residency mirrors the real-world experiences they may encounter when moving into the profession. We have had the pleasure of inviting guests Kimberly Field, Ilana Goldman, Lauren Canesi-Daniels, Roderick George, Natasha Davis, Shylo Martinez, Katherin Lopes and Early Mosley to work with our students.

As we celebrate our fourth year, we are delighted to collaborate with Performing Arts Live (PAL) resulting in our students not only learning repertoire from a professional dance company, but also having the opportunity to perform alongside these company members in the creation of a new work specifically designed for them. This year, with the support of PAL's artistic director, Courtney Reilly, and the immeasurable support of Marjorie Lewis, we have invited the company DanceWorks Chicago and guest choreographer Katie Vickers for this new version of the initiative.

DanceWorks Chicago is committed to build a foundation for the individual artistic growth of dancers and choreographers, providing a laboratory from which early career artists propel themselves and the art form to a new level through training, collaboration, mentorship and performance. Led with integrity by co-founder and artistic director Julie Nakagawa, DanceWorks Chicago fills a niche in the dance ecosystem investing in and shining a spotlight on the individual artists. Dancers are encouraged to explore their technical capability as well as their artistic curiosity in an individualized and deeply personal approach with the goal of nurturing passionate, articulate artists able to make meaningful contributions to the art form. Choreographically, they look to uncover new voices while also embracing opportunities to connect with more established choreographers providing mentorship and perspective for all involved. Welcoming the public to engage with the DanceWorks family to build context around the work of art is both our pleasure and our duty as a good dance citizen.

Katie Vickers teaches at various universities throughout the United States and Europe. Her own work questions the use of the body to find the unfamiliar in the familiar. Focused on the intersection of performance, slowness and nature, Katie searches for friction between the sensorial and the symbolic. The work, Flamingos (adaptation), is an iteration of the piece Flamingos choreographed by Albert Quesada and danced by Katie Vickers. Albert and Katie have created three other iterations of this work at various universities. At Shenandoah, Katie will choreograph a new iteration that continues deconstructing the world of flamenco, showing the beauty behind the power of this form. We do not practice the form of flamenco yet we aim to understand its driving force – a ferocity that challenges our individual impulses and ways of performing. We borrow the intensity, rhythms, focus and delivery from flamenco, and take it into improvisation and contemporary dance performance. The use of energy evokes a certain rhythmic physicality and play between the performers and the audience. We share our stories – fears, joys and pleasures to provoke a performance full of magic and duende.

Dance is a universal form of expression that strives to communicate; be it to form community, worship, philosophize, entertain, share stories, express emotions or give visualization to aspirations, struggles and triumphs. In all cases, there is a sharing of information that happens when the performing body moves and is viewed by others . . . and the identification of meaning is based on the many individual and unique factors that each viewer, (including you!), brings to the experience of the “performance.”

I hope you enjoy tonight's performance and I invite you to become a Friend of the Conservatory to help support this, and future dance initiatives that provide current and impactful experiences for our students.

– Maurice Fraga