By VANESSA SKILDUM
The Dance program at Beloit College celebrated its 30th reunion this past weekend. Over 70 alumni returned to celebrate with events from Friday to Sunday, including a happy hour, Chris Johnsons’ final jazz class, a performance at the Hendricks Center with an after-party, and Dance Church on Sunday.
A dance performance featuring alumni was held Saturday night at 6 p.m. in Hendricks Studio 1. There were seven performances, with two films featuring dances. Current dance students were featured in the final performance, “Duel Revolution.”
Following the performance, there was an after-party immediately in the Hendricks Lounge, allowing alumni to reconnect with each other and celebrate the performances they had just put on.
Lily Watkins’12, who performed fourth in “Overture to Soft Horse,” said, “It was a little bit surreal. I never thought I would be back dancing in the Hendricks center and dancing back with my friends.”
The event celebrates the dance program and sends off Professor Chris Johnson, who brought the Dance major to Beloit College. She is retiring after the semester but will return to teach one course a year HEAL 301 Anatomy, Kinesiology, and Somatics. Her final Jazz class was in the Stack on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Marrissa Hutton‘12 said the most exciting part of the weekend was seeing everyone and being in familiar spaces. She also said Chris Jazz’s last class was very special and was up there for her.
The dance reunion was organized by a class, PART 360, Topics in Arts Entrepreneurship, offered by Gina T’ai. The course was split into two sections. One took place last spring semester for half a credit, and the other took place this semester for another half credit.
The students who put this together included: Rayne Hoover’27, Emma Logas’25 Julia Newmark’25, Cryus Roman’24, Gillian Tam’27, Serafina Tassi’25, Kateri Zitzelsberger’26, and two current abroad students Ava Parr’25 and Adrianna Terrell’25.
The Merch logo designed by Logas featured a piece shown as a film titled “True North,” directed and choreographed by Gina T’ai and performed by Sarah Miller‘15, which was available for sale in navy blue. The students of the class could be seen wearing cream merch to be easily visible if questions arose. Logas was also one of 6 students performing in the show in the piece “Duel Duel Revolution.”
“It got more intimidating the closer we got.” Said Hoover when discussing what the planning experience was like, “It was step by step figuring out what our expectations from each other were. It’s been less of a student-professor-led class and more of a group project.”
Roman, the only male-identifying student in the class and a nondancer, discussed what he took away from planning this: “There was a lot of communication, with so many different perspectives. We had a bunch of dancers in the class, and being one of the dancers, I was kind of an outsider and got to bring in that perspective. Then, it was figuring out how to mold all of them together.”
Gabe Gonzalez‘20, who performed and choreographed a piece titled “Midwest Princess frfr,” led the Dance Church class, an all-level dance class taught by dancers, at noon in Eaton Chapel on Sunday, closing out the weekend of dance-inspired celebrations.
Featured Image: Dancers in the Powerhouse Stack, Vanessa Skildum’27
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