Dance Meets OVF

Posted by Amanda Tyler in OVF

As haunting music begins to play in the dance studio and the room fills with dance and film students alike, guest choreographer Jocelyne Danchick takes to the center of the room to fit her breathy, captivating movement with the hypnotic sounds filling the space.

“I kind of walk in blank slate, cause I have really no idea…I’m very visual, so I think about what can happen in the space,” Danchick says, as she begins to explain a choreographic process that involves so much more than a typical dance would.

The piece is intended for performance at SFUAD’s fourth annual Outdoor Vision Fest on May 2. Combining the collaborative efforts of six dance majors and six film students, as well as student composer Angelo Harmsworth and potential involvement of the theatre lighting department, Danchick’s well-qualified background of multimedia projects is allowing each student to shine.

“They’re really involved in the adventure… and they’re inspiring for me, some really great artists that happen to be students,” Danchick continues.

The piece itself consists of three movements. The first will make use of the film school’s green screen capabilities, projecting images of the dancers onto a large wall while the dancers perform underneath. The second is more ‘psychedelic,’ as Danchick describes it, with the dancers emerging from the trees that are in the area. The piece will end with Trojan women-like movement looking at the decay of civilization, also incorporating the use of green screen, which makes up the third section. The ebb and flow of this site-specific piece has not only allowed for creative freedom for the dancers, but also given the entire crew the opportunity to showcase their artistic problem solving capabilities.

When discussing the lighting challenges that the piece is presenting, film student Megan Noce offers an eager, upbeat anecdote. “I mean, it’s been done before…but not here, so this will be the first time! It’s brand new for us,” Noce proudly remarks. While the intricacies of lighting the dancers without distracting from the projection will be a complicated process, the involvement of so many talented artists is ensuring that this is a collaborative piece to go down in OVF history.