Hannah Finnegan

Creating a Vision
Finnegan describes her group piece, “Monsters of My Mind,” as the portrayal of negative thoughts and how they can affect a person’s life and personality. She pulled inspiration from a quote found on Pinterest: “It’s not easy to have become numb. It only shows you have felt everything a billion times over. And now your mind is so exhausted, it cannot even express itself anymore,” by an unknown author. Her piece features ten dancers who will be wearing black and white geometric morph suits. “I chose these because I want them to represent negative thoughts/figures of imagination rather than humans. This is why I chose to have their faces concealed,” Finnegan explained. Through this concept, she hopes the audience reflects on negative experiences they may have encountered in life.

Finnegan’s solo “Unattainable” is about the internal conflict of dancing for yourself, while also dancing for an audience and “the desire to reach perfection in your dancing,” she explained. As she expresses vulnerability through the solo, Finnegan wants the audience to “get a sense of who I am not only as a performer, but also as a person.”

Structured improve is one of Finnegan’s primary techniques for generating choreography. This is a technique where the dancers are given freedom to explore movement under specific instruction. For example, asking a dancer to improv with animalistic qualities, or with initiation from a specific body part is considered structured improv. She enjoys giving her dancers improvisational tasks as an inspirational tool for new choreography. Finnegan aims for unique movement and interesting, creative sequences for her pieces.

Emily LaCourse

Similarly, LaCourse’s group piece “Dark Corners” envisions the shadows that hide in our lives. “These shadows creep and crawl out of the boxes that we try so hard to tuck away from the public eye. In this piece, my dancers will be the shadows that represent anxiety, depression, and mental, emotional, and physical abuse,” she explained. The ten dancers in her piece are wearing black leotards with mesh sleeves, black leggings, and black socks. “Since they are shadows, I wanted to black out their eyes with stage makeup that starts darker and blends into a smoky illusion. I feel this really adds to their character,” LaCourse elaborated. For this piece, she is using a large, black box where the dancers who are playing the role of shadow figures can “hide and creep.” The box is also used in her solo to connect the two pieces.

LaCourse’s solo, “The Things that Keep Me Up at Night” is her way of sharing with the audience the things that disturb her while sleeping. She describes the concept as waking up at night in complete panic over nothing and everything in the same moment. The message she wants to convey through both her group and solo is, “we as humans should not stuff the uncomfortable in a box never to be opened.”

LaCourse enjoys choreographing movement that feels natural to the body. “I take a phrase and set it on bodies. I take note of how this phrase moves on my dancers and then manipulate the space, time, and energy of the movement. I like to see choreography as a puzzle that only [I] can solve,” she further explained.

Tiana Farnsworth

In contrast to Finnegan and LaCourse’s pieces, Farnsworth’s group piece, “Small Things” exudes a much happier tone. It is about the small things in life that make a person happy, “It explores the everyday gestures, friendships, playfulness, and the spread of joy that can come from one person,” she explained. In this piece, Farnsworth expresses the color of life along with aspects of joy and happiness. Her group features seven dancers, wearing knee-length tank dresses in yellow, blue, and pink. “Their hair will be half-up/half-down with basic makeup to give a lighter quality for the piece and allow for facial expressions to be seen,” she explained. Farnsworth is also using flowers as a prop. “The flowers match the color of their dress to resemble how one individual’s happy moment can spread and affect other’s lives as well,” she elaborated.

Farnsworth’s solo, “All the Pieces” portrays a recurring thought or memory as a reminder of happiness in life. “It explores how life can distract us from what brings us joy and sometimes happiness is a choice and sometimes it weaves in and out of our lives,” Farnsworth elaborated.

Farnsworth’s choreographic process includes formulating her concept, founding music, then going into the studio where she explores movement in relation to the feeling of the music. “I repeat the movement I have found and watch it in the mirror or on my dancers to see if it works or not,” she explained.

The creation of each choreographer’s unique group and solo is essential to the concert as a whole. However, the compilation of all the sections together allows for a cohesive and sentimental performance. Each dance provides the audience with a different story that portrays each choreographer’s individual style and vision. The choreographers look forward to sharing their finished work with friends and family next month.