Meet Me - 2023 Senior Dance Concert

Northampton, MA – The Smith College Department of Dance is pleased to present the 2023 Senior Dance Concert: Meet Me on April 6, 7 and 8 at 7:30 p.m. The seven graduating seniors, Nell Adkins, Quinn Coolidge, Samantha Miller Grossman, Claire Kirk, Becca Soifer, Sophia Thomas and Shira Zaid present their Senior thesis dance works about memory, self-love, reflection, electricity and community. The concert is open to the public in Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre on the Smith College campus. Masks are welcome. Tickets are available at SmithArts.Booktix.com.

Nell Adkins centers themes of Jewish grief, agency, and memory in her piece Within the Fall. Inspired by the work of Jewish author, playwright, and ethnographer S. Ansky, the piece explores a doomed wedding on the eve of destruction. Through grappling with the possession of a young woman and the lessons of Jewish folklore, one may find that the seed of redemption is indeed contained within the fall.

The Senselessness We Project by Quinn Coolidge reflects how the choreographer’s environment has shaped him. It expands from the templates of ballet, postmodern theater, and contact improvisation to navigate the choreographer’s intimate and difficult relationships with the institutions he’s a part of and his emotional processes.

In Atlas I: Six Simultaneities Samantha Miller Grossman creates a dance that is also an atlas—a compendium of history and place, a collection of maps bound together into a whole. Six humans carry depths of spatial knowledge and memory that coexist and meld together on the stage, emerging from and folding back into one’s dreams of the places that shape one’s lives.

Claire Kirk plays with expectations and encourages self-love in Learn to Love {Ourselves} a dance that fosters community through movement. “These things are all important but often lost amidst the shuffle of everyday life.” Kirk explains, “My dance pushes the boundaries of what audiences see on stage.”

Becca Soifer’s piece The Shape of Power, is inspired by the book The Power by Naomi Alderman. It explores the theory of electrical power flowing through our bodies and its effects on us and the surrounding world.

In kaleidoscope, Sophia Thomas explores connection, queerness, and what makes one human. She uses concepts such as legibility, attention, relationship, and contrast to create a shared, joyful experience between the dancers and the audience.

Dreams of Dust and Water by Shira Zaid is a dance film accompanied by live spoken word poetry. Divided into three distinct sections like a triptych painting that vary in tonality and location, the film explores the separation and overlap between the past, present, and future. How does our memory of the past shape our present, and how does our present shape our dreams of the future?

The $5-10 tickets are general seating in Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre. Tickets are available online at Smitharts.Booktix.com or by emailing boxoffice@smith.edu.