Trip the Light Fantastic

Moving in orchestrated unison, the dancers sway, their arms sweep through the air, their feet tap, touch, and turn, directed by little else than the absorbing, repetitive rhythms of bongo drums.

Periodically, a voice is heard counting, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight; one, two . . . .” It seems to be all the prompting the 30 members of Rice Dance Theatre need as they rehearse with a fluid coordination that belies the complexity of these technical drills.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon at the Harjo Dance Studio in Autry Gym, and the class in progress is one of two weekly technical sessions required of all members of the Rice Dance Theatre (RDT). Technical mastery, after all, catalyses well-honed art, point out their instructors, Rebecca Valls, assistant director for dance programs, and Christine Lidvall, Dance Theatre coordinator.

Both are professional dancers and choreographers of national distinction. Valls, who also is on the dance faculty at the University of Houston, and Lidvall, who founded Chrysalis Dance Company in Houston in 1983, demand high standards and encourage the talent, passion, and creative intelligence that they see in these dancers. They understand that talent begets talent.

Here at Rice, Valls and Lidvall have discovered that, despite the demands of academic pursuits, members of the company flourish as dancers and aspiring choreographers. Valls credits RDT founder Linda Phenix for setting the tone for the company and establishing high standards from the start. Phenix launched the Rice dance program in 1979 and spent about 20 years with RDT before leaving to direct Chrysalis.

Rice Dance Theatre exists as a student organization under the Office of Student Affairs. In other words, it is a club, but Valls notes that it is driven by a flair and intensity more expected of a university department than a student club. Although the dancers do not have as many rehearsals as might be found among students in a university department, they’re “self-motivated,” Lidvall says. “They have great memories, they’re quick learners, they’re intelligent.”

One of three co-presidents of RDT, Will Rice senior and English major Jessi Harper says, “I’m impressed with the level of devotion that so many of us have to what is basically just a club. I think that most of that comes from the earnestness of Rebecca Valls and Christine Lidvall to cultivate a company that works hard to create high-quality productions. They guide us all to become better dancers and choreographers—better in the sense that we are technically more proficient and also more aware of the many, many ways to apply dancing to the rest of our lives.”

Such earnest endeavor on the part of students and instructors has not gone unnoticed. The dance company was invited by the Performance Prelude Program of the Society for the Performing Arts to perform in the foyer of Wortham Center last November, prior to the billed performance by the French company Ballet Preljocaj. They put on four student-choreographed pieces: Sostegno, jointly choreographed by Baker senior and electrical engineering major Abbie Bartlett and Martel senior and bioengineering major Denise Marchand; Tuesday’s Heart Mechanic by Wiess senior Amy Bellaire; Sect-sy by Harper; and Circe by Will Rice junior Mamie Air.

Air, a biochemistry major, said she had never choreographed for anyone but herself until she joined RDT. “Last semester, I choreographed a seven-minute dance for five dancers, and I have been thrilled with its success. It is a joy to see a dance develop from an idea to a product.”

Bellaire, who also made her choreography debut this semester, said, “I never realized all the thought that goes into creating a piece for performance: the movement itself, moving your dancers around on stage, the costumes, lights, music.” A double major in environmental science and engineering and political science, Bellaire shares the co-presidency with Harper and Baker senior Amy Tankard.

For Harper, now on her third choreography, “the process has become so much simpler. I have the confidence to run rehearsals in the most effective way possible so that my dancers and I can create something that we’re all proud of.”

As proficient as these dancers are, however, they also recognize that there remains a lot of growing room for each of them—some more than others, perhaps. Valls and Lidvall acknowledge that the company consists of mixed levels of technical skill and ability.

“Modern dance, however, is not just dependent on technique virtuosity but on expression as well,” Valls says. The modern idiom also draws on a larger palette of artistic ideas, colors, and abstraction, all of which build on intellectual processes and not intuition alone.

For this reason, Valls and Lidvall consider Rice students particularly well-suited for modern dance. “The modern dance aesthetic requires abstract thought, invention, individuality, and independent thinking,” Valls says. “It is ballet and more. Whereas ballet focuses on the perfection of steps, modern dance is more concerned with the process of the craft.”

Well-suited though they may be to modern dance, Rice students still find themselves unprepared for their first encounter with the art. “It was a shock in many ways,” Harper says. “The concepts were immediately bizarre to me, but even more surprising was the change in my technique. For the first time, I had teachers who were emphasizing movement that complemented my natural anatomy. I wasn’t used to moving in an ‘organic’ fashion or having people take the time to talk to me personally about how I could help myself become more free in my body.”

For Air, who has had about 15 years of dancing, RDT has also given her a fresh perspective on life in a dance company. Given the disparity in ability levels, “it is not as professional as some of the companies I have been affiliated with in the past,” she says. “But that has actually been a very good thing because the cut-throat competition, bitterness, and cattiness is not present among the dancers in RDT. We are not trying to outdo each other for spots or compete for the teacher’s attention. We are all friends. We have fun. We all share this passion for dance. That is the way it should be.”

The result is an atmosphere conducive to learning, growing, experimenting, inventing. Looking back on her years with RDT, Jessi says, “Everything is memorable about RDT. Not only is it a challenging dance company that works at a high level—while not excluding people with fewer years of experience or less technical ability—it is also a group of people with similar creative interests who like to spend time with one another.”

Such an attitude certainly contributes to the spirit of teamwork and learning, and both instructors offer generous praise for the work their students have put in. “I enjoy teaching and mentoring these young women and watching them grow as dance artists,” Valls says. “Much of the growth happens in the company class where we work on dance technique, bond as a group, and share our commitment and love of dancing. The high point for me in class is when they perform full out and are totally present in the moment. That is true dancing."

—Tse-Ying Koh