Student dancers perform Doug Varone’s ‘Democracy’

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When award-winning choreographer/director Doug Varone first heard composer Juila Wolfe’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” the score compelled him to create a dance for it — “Democracy.”

”I never know where a dance is coming from,” Varone said. “Usually it comes out of ideas or things or thoughts that I’m having at the current moment.”

For Varone, the creative process has always been about interweaving ideas that he feels are part of his ongoing life. He heard Wolfe’s piece in 1997, a time when he was researching the modernist Bauhaus movement. He came across wood lithographs telling the story of a town in anarchy. Buildings burned and people ran away.

“But all of it had a very flat, very archaic sensibility to it,” he said. “I was very drawn to the visual of these, and against this score, this dance was born.”

Fifteen students in the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Dance and Choreography in the School of the Arts will perform an excerpt from “Democracy” this weekend at the VCU Dance NOW concert. In addition, dancers will perform new work by fall visiting artist and former PHILADANCO company member Dawn Marie Bazemore, and faculty members Martha Curtis, Robbie Kinter, Autumn Proctor Waddell, Scott Putman, Melanie Richards and Judith Steel.

Varone’s rapport with VCU began in 1993 when his friend Chris Burnside, then a dance instructor here, presented him with a fascinating opportunity.

“I was invited here,” he said. “The company was invited here for seven weeks every year for three years. … I taught technique and choreography. We made dances here and then we performed them here. It was a beautiful, fertile time, [a] creative time for myself and the company. And a really beautiful relationship, I felt, was formed with VCU.”

However, life gets in the way, and the last time Varone came to VCU was in 2000. But last year, Julia Burrer, a member of the Doug Varone and Dancers company, held a fall residency at VCU Dance with the intent to teach one of Varone’s dances.

“It just felt like it was the right moment,” Varone said, who came to campus last weekend to take a look at the performance and make sure it was up to snuff. “Life works in cycles. It was exciting to be able to have a work to set on these really amazing dancers. We sent them several dances to look at. I want to make sure that the dances that we stage at universities are appropriate for the talent and the dancers that are in the program. All my dances are really challenging. ‘Democracy’ is an immensely technical work. It’s also an emotive work, so it pushes the dancers to both be physical, and also figure out how to push that physicality forward in terms of an emotional way.”

I think the beauty of staging a work on different dancers is that you allow them and empower them in many ways to take ownership over those roles.

That said, Varone is very happy they chose “Democracy,” which he says feels vital for that particular age group. It also maintains its integrity after all these years, having held up over the course of time.

“I feel like I’ve become a better and different choreographer in that time, so I look at that work and I’m able to make shifts and adjustments sometimes, small, based off of the things I have learned over the course of time,” he said. “There have been very few changes. I think the beauty of staging a work on different dancers is that you allow them and empower them in many ways to take ownership over those roles.”

Remaining VCU Dance NOW 2015 shows will be held Feb. 20 and 21 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Grace Street Theater, 934 W. Grace St. Tickets are $20 / $15 for students with valid ID. Group discounts available. Call 804-828-2020 or visit Showclix. Parking passes will be available for advance purchase online. Feb. 21 is Alumni Night.

 

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