Arts & Culture
Students in "rhythm moves me" show off their dance moves.
Winterim dance class moves past the ordinary
The Pointer
lgern177@uwp.edu
Typically, exchanging several weeks of winter break for the stress of tests, textbooks and waking up early is not an ideal choice for students. But typical is not descriptive of at least one Winterim course, a performance workshop offered through continuing education entitled "rhythm moves me."
The course, comprised of 11 students, is intended to not only explore rhythm in its varied forms, but also to educate young audiences on the historical and cultural components of dance.
The students use their bodies as primary instruments for these objectives, performing 40 minutes of dances and techniques from around the world, such as the gumboot from Africa, body percussion and American tap dancing. They also use drumming, song and dialogue.
The students have done several performances in grade schools in the Stevens Point area, also conducting workshops and allowing the children to perform with them.
“After doing the show and the workshops, we’d give the kids high fives and it was great to see them so excited,” Cortez Edwards, an arts management student said. “That was very rewarding.”
Jeannie Hill, a dance instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, initially conceptualized the course as part of the thesis for her master’s degree at UW-Milwaukee.
Hill said she had questions about the fundamental properties of rhythm that she wanted to explore.
“I wanted to find out why rhythm moves people,” she said. “Rhythm is innately human; it’s a part of us. We all own it and we should all be allowed to express it physically.”
But despite this foundational aspect of universality, Hill said in some cultures dance is not always the powerful means of expression that it is in others.
“Here we seem to dance less than people other cultures,” she said.
The students negate some of these cultural inhibitions through physical communication, using call and response clapping techniques that engage the audience.
Hill said the entire performance was low-tech and acoustic, relying on physical sound without microphones.
“It keeps the audience listening,” she said. “It provokes the idea that we don’t need everything amplified.Sometimes when there is so much sound coming at us we don’t really listen.”
Hill said the group exemplified the idea that rhythm is an organizing device, a storytelling device and a community-building device.
She said the students are like a microcosm for the larger community, as their majors are as far ranging as arts management, history, acting, dance and music education.
“They each had something different to bring to the table and were very amenable to working together,” Hill said.
Different individuals worked on scripting, improvisation, choreography and music arrangement according to their skills.
“The biggest challenge was realizing that everyone in their artistic form or artistic nature has their own opinion on how things should go,” said Edwards. “You don’t always have to be heard and sometimes it’s better to hear other people out and let them shine in what they do. We all kept respect for each other.”
Audience members like Jessie Michelson, a music theatre major, said they were impressed by the group’s dynamic performance.
“I was really intrigued by the performance and how universal it was,” he said. “Anyone can understand and enjoy it.”
Rhythm moves me’s last performance will take place at the Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum in the Center Point Mall on Saturday, Jan. 24 from 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. The show is free with a $3 museum admission fee.
