2025 Senior Dance Concert

Northampton, MA – The Smith College Department of Dance presents the 2025 Senior Dance Concert on April 3, 4, 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre featuring original choreography by Evelyn Cauley, Claire Dana, Abbey Fluet, Delia Haston, Grace Su, and Taylor Zweil. The concert consists of six contemporary pieces with large casts created under the guidance of artistic director Rodger Blum, Professor of Dance. Tickets are $5–10 at smitharts.ludus.com.

Immersed in a realm of abstraction, An Influenced Trajectory by Evelyn Cauley provides a window into the process of building a world for one’s self. Articulate gestures, haphazard interactions, and intriguing audio help this realm take shape as the 5 dancers explore what it means to influence and to be influenced. This piece embodies the ever-changing world we all exist in and work to make sense of every day. “It's very strange yet also very human! It's bizarre yet personal and as confusing as it is captivating,” says Cauley “I want the audience to question how they came to be. What people, circumstances, and experiences influenced and guided their life trajectory?”

Inspired by folklore, horror, and gothic subculture, Unseelie explores the aesthetics of alternative communities and their focus on dark, unsightly, and supernatural themes. Claire Dana creates a dark landscape with flowing, mystical, contemporary movement, eerie instrumental music, and elegant stage design to embrace alternative forms of self-expression in this contemporary piece for six dancers. “I am excited to explore a dark and mysterious dance aesthetic with my cast,” says Dana.

Abbey Fluet’s To Me It Was searches for where the dance goes when it vanishes with time. “This work contains a wide variety of movement textures, from weighty, sweeping sequences where the center of gravity is continuously in motion, to heavily distilled and subtle gestures that are almost undetectable,” explains Fluet. The dance is created in tandem with her honors thesis paper on quantum theory and metaphysics as avenues toward deeper understandings in dance improvisation. “I want the audience to ponder the ephemeral nature of their own lived experiences, and find solace in the dance as a fleeting moment in time that lives on in the memories of those who experience it.”

Inspired by the domestic practice of quilt-making, Delia Haston’s piece for 13 dancers, stabat/floreat, explores the experiences of female* socialization and expression, and considers what defines a “female” art. Drawing from portrayals of “Mary” in several forms and leading ladies from 20th century movie-musicals, the dance presents both an overreaction and abstraction of femininity in its most contained spaces. Haston is excited to build a community on stage with such a large cast. “It would be nice if the audience takes away a sense of familiarity with the portrayals in the piece,” she says “and perhaps a feeling that they could know somebody after watching them dance.”

Pāramitā (पारमिता) in Sanskrit means “arriving at the other shore.” The piece by Grace Su for five dancers follows people on a journey—they arrive, pause, and move forward, sometimes alone, sometimes together. At times, they cross paths, finding each other for a moment before drifting apart again, each following their own way. The dance shows the mix of searching, discovery, and the endless journey of finding one’s way. Su hopes the audience will share in this journey of searching, connecting, and uncertainty.

Taylor Zweil’s Habitats (and Other Encounters) for nine dancers takes the world we all know and turns it on its head in a flurry of activity. Between the routines of chaos and stillness lies the truth of who we are, how we live, and how we come to see each other. With fluidity, repetition, and shadow, Habitats brings the viewer on a journey through a constantly changing environment to seek peace and connection. Zweil, who majors in dance and environmental science and policy, aims to break down the idea that we are thinkers first, and beings second. “I want people to see that separation destroys and unity creates.”