By Edna Horton/nw news editor
Art students hope to inspire dancers in a NW Campus performance.
Amy Sleigh, associate professor of dance, and Winter Rusiloski, associate professor of art, are planning a performance that will include art and dance students.
“We have been talking for a while and expressing ideas on how art and choreography relate to each other,” Sleigh said.
The performance will involve three of Rusiloski’s art students and six of Sleigh’s dance students. The art students will begin the show by painting to music on three panels of butcher paper placed on the walls.
When the music changes, the dance students will move to the patterns that have been painted. The dancers will freeze, and the painters will return and either paint around the dancers or on them. A final dance will end the performance.
Rusiloski encouraged her art students to be inspired by the music and paint different lines and shapes on their canvasses. She said they had a lot of space to fill, and, even though they are not dancers, they should still be moving. During the performance, they will move to different stations before ending up at the same station. When they move out, the dancers will perform to what was painted.
Sleigh encouraged her dance students to move throughout the space. She said to move their legs and arms or move on the floor. She also encouraged the painters to study the dancers’ poses and follow the lines of their bodies. Like the painters, the dancers will also move to different stations and give interpretations of that painting.
Since this performance is new to the students, Sleigh and Rusiloski are still working out the details. Music still must be picked, but they plan to have three different genres. The dance and art students are working together to choose the music.
“Could it be something like a mixed cut,” said Linnia Bernady, a dance student, “between something slow, then rock or maybe something classical?”
Sleigh and Rusiloski said the performance will be improvisational. They will rehearse, but the dancing and painting will be created on the spot.
“One of the interesting things about this is the dancers taking from what the art students do and the art students taking from what the dancers do,” Rusiloski said. “That’s something that doesn’t happen all the time. The common denominator is working collaboratively.”
The performance takes place at the end of the Student Choreography Showcase 7:30-9 p.m. Dec. 3 in WHPE 1103. Everyone is welcome to attend, and admission is $1. For more information, contact Sleigh at amy.sleigh@tccd.edu or Rusiloski at winter.rusiloski@tccd.edu.
