Diverse Pieces Set Show Apart

“It’s a very subtle collaborative process,” Harvard-Radcliffe Dance Company (HRDC) Co-Director Sonia K. Todorova ’07 says of modern dance. “It becomes something that originates in the choreographer’s mind and then transforms into what the dancers give to it.”

The result?

“Nobody...can predict the end.”

For the HRDC, tonight is that unpredictable end. This weekend, the company’s straightforwardly titled “Spring Concert of Modern Dance” is set to overtake the newly built Harvard Dance Center (HDC). Although this is a year of challenges for HRDC, they expect the showing to be one full of energy, enthusiasm and creativity, in much the same way that they characterize the company itself.

“We choose a lot of members based on enthusiasm instead of just technique,” Co-Director Mai-King C. Chan ’06 says. “Everybody who performs is really enthusiastic about the show.”

HRDC, the longest-running student dance company on campus, channels this enthusiasm for modern dance with weekly classes and two concerts each year.

Traditionally, HRDC’s two annual shows have varied in size, with one in the more intimate venue of Adams House Pool Theatre and the other in the recently vacated Rieman Dance Center. This year, however, the company must face the challenge of adapting to a new performance space, the Harvard Dance Center (HDC) in the Quad.

HRDC Instructor Brenda Divelbliss, an artistic associate in the Harvard Dance Program, gushes about the “state-of-the-art lighting” and excellent flooring of the HDC, which was constructed specifically for dance.

“The space looks so beautiful,” Divelbliss says. “It really transforms the dance when you can put it in such a beautiful frame.”

Todorova is equally enthusiastic about their first performance in the HDC, although she does express some trepidation for the company’s traditional finale of musical and choreographic improvisation.

“It’s the first time we’re trying [improvisation] in bigger space,” Todorova says. “People are being more careful. They’re trying to make it work out professionally.”

The directors identified this year as a “rebuilding year” because many active members graduated in 2005. Instead of presenting large company pieces, HRDC’s small core of about 15 dancers will perform solos, duets and small groups numbers.

Although the classes are instructed by Divelbliss, eight of the 10 numbers in tonight’s concert showcase student choreography.

According to Todorova, the audience should “expect to see a lot of diversity in the pieces. Every choreographer has done something slightly intriguing in the context of their own work. If you’ve never seen a HRDC show, it’s very innovative dance [with] a lot of interesting and original ideas.”

The concert’s musical selection epitomizes HRDC’s celebration of diversity. Tonight’s show spans genres, featuring ethnic music, industrial sound effects, poetry, and even some popular music.

“HRDC does not have one particular style,” Divelbliss says. “You can express what it is you want to express [with] your own music vocabulary.”

“Modern is appealing to people who haven’t seen dance before,” says Chan of the genre’s approachability. “It’s not based strictly on technique. It involves a lot of aesthetics in terms of how people are placed on the stage and how people are moving to the music.”

Despite the difficulty of being a small, creative force in a large, professional venue, HRDC does not shy away from performing.

“What we do does not end in the studio,” Todorova says. “There is some sort of magic involved [in performance], and I’m looking forward to it happening again.”