Alter/Altar showcases CU grad student choreography
, an MFA candidate in dance at CU Boulder, didnât get any formal training in her craft until adulthood. Before that, she learned everything she knew about dance from services on Sunday mornings.
âThatâs where my training started: inside the church,â Williams says. âI saw my elders shouting and moving with the music in response to a spiritual message. That evolved to me watching MTV and BET videos and dancing along. I wasnât actually âtrainedâ until I hit 18.â
Few dancers at CU have researched how faith influences movement, but for Williams, itâs a fascinating subject. Her choreographed pieceâthe âaltarâ part of aÌęâgets its inspiration from liturgical dance, a name given to movement that serves as an expression of worship to a higher power. Its premiere runs March 3-5 in CUâsÌę.
Spiritual expression takes many forms, from ballet to Hip-Hop to a gospel choirâs back-and-forth sway. Williams incorporates all of this and moreâshouting, West African dance, jazz, houseâin a piece that she hopes exposes the creativity, intelligence and power of cultural practices with African roots.
âIâm hoping people take away an understanding that belongs to all humanity: We are here; We are important,â she says. âMy hope is that we enact principles that speak to this truth by practicing awareness and action.âÌę
, an MFA student who shares the bill with Williams, also hopes she can âalterâ audiencesâ views on traditional hierarchy in dance with her work.
âI challenged myself to make a piece that was completely improvisational,â she says.
Thatâs quite a feat, given that spontaneity is a tricky thing to choreograph. She was moved to try it out after years of dancing in companies where, as she puts it, âI was an empty vessel for a choreographer to fill up.â She wanted to give dancers more agency with improvisation, which essentially puts her, as the choreographer, on an equal footing with the dancers.
âItâs interesting that, in our culture, we place so much value on authorship,â Ritchie says. âIn dance, the choreographer is usually the one credited for creating the vision. With improvisation, the power dynamic can change with the shift of a foot. Whoâs in charge? Itâs difficult to figure out.â
Ritchie says improvisational dance gets a bad rap in the industry. Thereâs a misconception that itâs so spontaneous that it all comes out looking incoherent and incohesive. But she says what the critics are missing is that good improvisational work is more intentional than they might think. Itâs built on the practice of listening for cues, of responding kinetically to each eveningâs unique performance environment. Ritchie says the audience itself will provide some of those cuesâsheâs that serious about the importance of collaboration in art.
âWhen I teach, Iâm coming from this perspective of, âLook, I donât have all the information, and Iâm here to learn from you, too,ââ she says. âWhen we fall into prescribed roles in a power structure, there isnât always this empathy or listening ⊠and I want to try to change that.â
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Performances
Friday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 5, 2 p.m.
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All events take place in the Charlotte York Irey Theatre.
Tickets for Alter/Altar start at $16.ÌęTo purchase tickets, visit the CU Presents box office in person (972 Broadway), call 303-492-8008 during business hours orÌęanytime. Note: All online and phone orders are subject to a service fee. To schedule interviews or for other media information, contact Jill Kimball atÌęjill.kimball@colorado.edu.