UI Dance Company - Promotional Photos
Since we moved back to Iowa City in 2018, one of my responsibilities in the UI Department of Dance has been serving as one of the directors of UI Dance Company (formerly known as Dancers in Company). Right now, I serve in this capacity alongside George de la Peña. When the university “went online” in March 2020, a couple of weeks after we presented our home concert, we began talking about what a 2020-2021 season might look like during a pandemic.
Summer 2020 a sort of strange, liminal time and space, where everyone felt a sense of urgency about needing to make decisions, but were severely limited in doing so, because the answers to so many questions hinged on unknown elements: case numbers, hospitalizations, and the rate of community spread in July didn’t tell us anything about what thing might look like in September, and certainly not in February. Eventually, once the fall 2020 semester settled into a bit of a rhythm and routine (and once we all got to experience what it actually meant to be dancing in person with other humans during a pandemic— the safety and mitigation protocols, working in reduced numbers, etc.—we finally felt prepared to make a plan for what our company might do this year.
A big part of UIDC’s mission is community engagement on tour: performances and workshops with various audiences throughout the state of Iowa. While we’ve been able to develop some good plans for presenting virtual performances and points of connection with audiences outside the university, it became clear that this season would really be about boiling down the essence of what it means to be “in a company,” to build community with a cohort of other dance artists as they learn the repertoire, and work together toward a common goal that relied on the contributions of everyone involved. In a university setting, dancers often work in a cast with a choreographer for a certain number of weeks or months on a single piece. UI Dance Company creates a unique opportunity for them to practice what it means to be accountable to a lot of different people on a lot of different fronts.
Last week, I got to work with our dancers one-on-one, in short fifteen minute windows, to shoot promotional photography for our 2021 season. We were fortunate enough to work in the lobby of Hancher Auditorium, which has become a temporary home of sorts for the Department of Dance (Halsey Hall is not viable during the pandemic because the studios don’t have ventilation that holds up to COVID safety standards).
I’ve loved getting to know these dancers this season, and it was so much fun to work with them in this way— on something that feels almost normal.
