Gotta Dance

Posted by Charlotte Martinez and Amanda Tyler in Performing Arts, Santa Fe

By Charlotte Martinez/ Photos by Amanda Tyler

Seven pairs of parallel feet marching in sync is the perfect metaphor for the emerging dance department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design—fuzzy socks and all! With Senior Maria Weckesser in lead, moving like the chug chugs of a locomotive, the six remaining “train cars” represent the entire population of the newly named Greer Garson Dance Company.

Introducing freshmen Marielle Garcia, Brittany Kriechbaumer, Marisa Melito, Stephanie Martinez, returning sophomore Alex Chavez and transfer junior Mikyla Hutwohl. In their first rehearsal, this small but mighty group of young women already share an excitement for the coming year.  Events span from site-specific installations to the annual Winter and Spring Recital in Greer Garson Theater. 

“It’s great because we get to help build everything,” freshman Melito says.  Like her dance teacher Shannon Elliot, Melito grew up a military brat, moving from place to place. Beside her, Stephanie Martinez, previous resident of Portland, Ore., nods her head and adds that because the department “doesn’t have their ways set” it becomes more open to them.

When as a group they’re asked what they hope to gain in the future, one shouts, “maybe some boys!”

At the front of Garson dance studio, Shannon Elliot conducts rehearsal with charismatic poise, giving notes and welcoming ideas. She mimics the stance of a train. The movement is comedically rigid. “It should look like a racket wrench,” Elliot says.

Luckily for the seven dance majors, their director Shannon Elliot, also the assistant chair of the Performing Arts Department, comes from a long career of professional dance and performance administration. With Hubbard Street, Canadian Dance Assembly, National Dance Institute of New Mexico and Moving People Dance Santa Fe under her belt, Elliot’s administrative career now includes five years as part time and full time staff at SFAUD. Today, the vibrant Elliot enters Greer Garson with dozens of ideas for her 2013-2014 school year.

Working her black leggings, patterned skirt, pink shirt and wicked jazz shoes, Elliot demonstrates the shapes and sounds of her upcoming dance, the first official project of the department.

The dance, Elliot explains, is meant for Santa Fe’s upcoming 3rd Annual AHA Festival of Progressive Arts, which she pitched as a perfect location for her students to move within “structures that currently exist.” The dancer’s stage? The inactive train tracks!

The Festival, a community-sponsored event featuring local artists, takes place in and around the Railyard this year on Sept. 15. The event is one of many that Elliot, with her co-workers Layla Amis, Jonathan Guise, and John Kloss, hope to utilize in their pursuits of a dance curriculum.

Along with scheduled rehearsals, classes this year include ballet three times a week, modern twice a week, and a tap taught by returning rhythm tapper John Kloss.

“We’re a small entity now,” Elliot says, reflecting her seven brave majors. “But as we grow I think it will be a really interesting addition to the [artistic] mix.” She adds that because these students are pursuing dance as a career, the level of professionalism is “going to have a very positive impact, not just within the Performing Arts Department but all over campus.”

John Weckesser, chair of the Performing Arts Department, says that the opportunity to create the major was “natural” because dance belongs with the performing arts. In the future he hopes to include additional dance space on campus so the program can become “as elevated as the Theater Department.”

The staff has additionally booked two guest artists to choreograph for the future Winter and Spring recitals. Choreographer and ballet teacher Kelsey Paschich will set a contemporary dance to classical music and Jamie Duggan will workshop an Afro House Fusion piece, a mix of old school hip hop and African dance. Other events include a performance installation at SFUAD’s Outdoor Vision Fest and a Summer Collaboration Intensive with Modas Dance Intensive from June 25- July 2.

Until then, the seven dancers of SFUAD’s dance company wheel across the studio on their imaginary train tracks, links in a growing chain. One hour, eight run-throughs and zero water-breaks later, Elliot steps back and says, “I like it! It’s cool looking!”