Kai Yu

DNCE131.04
Professor Brunsvold Mercedes
09/28/2019

SacDance Theater 19 Higher Ground

I attended the dance concert on Friday September 20, 2019 at 7PM. It is locating at
Sacramento state university in the Dance space Theater, which is located within Solano
Hall room 1010, the Sacramento Dance Theatre performed Higher Ground from
September 18th to the 29th. Lorelei Bayne, the director of the Sacramento/Black Art of
Dance. The two pieces that I will be discuss are It takes Everybody in the first act and
Split Form in the second act. The choreographer of the first piece It takes Everybody is
Lorelei Bayne. The sound used was Steppe, by Rene Aubry. The rehearsal assistant was
Alexandria Griffith. The choreographer of the second piece Split Form is Michael Crotty.
The piece used a lot of different music. It used BloodyMother ***king Asshole by Martha
Wainright, Envelope by Julianna Barwick, Di-li-Do by Bulgarian State Female Choir,
Peach, Plum, Pear by Joanna Newsome, Burdens by Lorn. Both pieces are very special.
The first piece is more emphasis on the use of props. For example, the different colors of
the costumes and chairs. The second piece is more emphasis on the use of different
sounds. In general, both dances are very attractive to the audience with their respective
characteristics.

The first piece It takes Everybody has five females’ dancers. They wore five
different colors of clothing, yellow, red, green, purple and white. At the beginning, they
all lay on the ground. Girl in yellow dress was in the middle. There were five chairs on
the stage. Then they spread out. Girl in yellow dress danced a solo. One of the
movements were she slightly bent the knees, then she made a rotating action in place.
Girls in other color clothes stood in the chair. Girl in yellow dress took the other girls
from the chair in turn. In the second phase of the piece, they first ran around the stage.
Then the movements of their dancing changed compared with the previous ones. They
made a lot of upward jumps and clapped their hands. Another very special action is to
touch each other's hair. Then there was a solo dance performed by the girl in white dress.
She made one very special movement, she was standing on one foot, the other leg was
raised very high. Other girls sat on the chair and were looking into the distance. In the
last phase, the dancers were organized into a circle. They surrounded the girl in white
clothes. The girl in white clothes stood on the chair. In the end, all of them stood in the
chair in turn.

The second piece Split Form has 5 females’ dancers and one man’s dancer. The piece
began with one boy and one girl lay on the floor. Then other dancers joined them and
started dancing together. In the first phase, there was one very special part was when
they are divided into groups of two, one of them was lying on the back of another person.
Another part that impressed me was on the solo dance. The performer would kick one
foot out in front with force and the foot would not be pointed but flat, parallel with the
body and toes pointed up. Then she made an action looking up at the sky. In the phase
two, at the beginning, there was one solo dance performed by one girl. The rest of
dancers marched on the spot at a slow pace. Another impressive movement is an action
that seems to be wiping the mouth. I don't fully understand this action, does it belong to a
dance series or it is just an impromptu action. In the last phase, they tried to make
comparison of two types of the movements: fast and slow. In the front, we had two
dancers danced. On the side, we had two dancers were still. In the back, we had one
dancer danced very fast. Another special movement was praying action. They had an
action that seem prays to the gods.
 Both pieces have their own characteristics. The first piece is more emphasis on the
use of props and colors. Five different colors allow us to create different contrasts for
each dancer more quickly. The use of the chairs enriched the action of the entire dance.
But in the first piece, it used only one sound. The change in music is relatively simple.
The second piece is more emphasis on the use of different sounds. It used five different
sounds. Sounds in the second piece are heavier. I think it is because the second piece has
relation with the religion. We saw the action of prayer and looking up at the sky. The
second piece has more solo dance and most of movements are slower than the first piece.
The slow movement also represents the tragic. In the first piece, we had movement of
clapping and rotating. Those movements represent more cheerful.

Overall, I think the concert was very successful. Each piece had their own different
characteristics. The concert had different pieces represent cheerful, love and religion.
Each piece had symbolism toward the spirits and nature that inhabit this world. For
example, in one of the pieces, we have performers portrayed love through them
movements, being soft and gentle, and their facial expressions, longingly strained. The
most important thing that I leaned form the performance was the different symbolism
behind each piece. Each piece had their own story or symbolism. This made me learn a
lot of things while watching dance.