[NEohioPAL] Dept of Dance at CWRU announces Spring 2021 Performance Alchemy

[CWRU Dept of Dance]

This spring, the Department of Dance at Case Western Reserve University
will continue its 2020-2021 season with Alchemy on April 18th, a thesis
concert featuring works by Master of Fine Arts candidates Katie Nabors and
Christian Mintah, and Master of Arts candidate Stephen Markwei, with
additional work by department chair Karen Potter.

Christian Mintah and Katie Nabors each perform in their solos as well as
choreograph an ensemble work for the concert. Nabors’ solo work,
Portraiturés, explores the ideas of inner and outer fortitude as it relates
to the whole self.

I Can’t Breathe is a solo work choreographed and performed by Christian
Mintah. In this work, he expresses his passion for protesting and his
reflection on his experience that “The White supremacists see my skin color
before my nationality but the black American sees my nationality before my
skin color”. This piece is inspired by the last words of George Floyd: “I
can’t breathe”, which led to some awakening in this country. With this
awakening came a new self-awareness as an international student. The piece
seeks to portray an individual who is in a constant struggle with a system
structured to restrict their right to absolute freedom.

Two ensemble works will premiere on this concert, Night Visions and Mia O
Hem. Mia O Hem means ‘be determined’ in the Dangbe dialect of the Adangbes
of Ghana, West Africa. Mintah’s piece seeks to acknowledge the emotions of
fear, self-doubt, and vulnerability in each individual while being
determined not to let these emotions hold them back but rather move past
these emotions in order to achieve a set goal. The choreography will draw
from both modern and contemporary dance and West African dance movements in
order to create a wide range of movement vocabulary and fusion.

Night Visions, choreographed by Katie Nabors, is set to a dynamic and rich
score and depicts the abstract, nocturnal journey of a dreamer manifested
through a series of night visions.

Stephen Markwei will premiere an original solo, Who am I, set to music by
Gionanni Sollima. It is an abstract piece that communicates the struggles
associated with finding one's identity and the sense of liberation upon
finding it.

Piercing the Veil of Time is created by Karen Potter with the two MFA
candidates, and is an outdoor duet that is filmed on the Mergings fountain
on the Mather Quad on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. Seeing
dancers move in the water on the fountain inspired the idea of seeing
dancers dance amidst leaves in the fall and snow in the winter.  The
sections of the dance serve to weave the man and woman together in a
journey through the seasons.

The premiere is on April 18th and will be made available on the CWRU
Department of Dance YouTube Channel
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHSOF-J0QLpse-RiPjcPcQ>.
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