Dancing to another place: Waking Darkness. Waiting Light.

On the weekend of October 7th, MFA Dance candidates Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves will present their thesis concert, Waking Darkness. Waiting Light.

On the weekend of October 7th, MFA Dance candidates Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves will present their thesis concert, Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. The joint concert brings together the thesis work of both choreographers: Krogol explores her Cuban-American heritage and Reeves examines origin myths and metaphors of darkness and light. Their individual research combines into a unified performance that explores themes of waiting, transitions and transformations over time, and juxtapositions of old and new.

As MFA Dance candidates, Krogol and Reeves have developed themselves as artist-scholars that engage in parallel processes of research and artistic creation, such that their scholarship informs their art, and vice versa. Reeves’ work is largely concerned with comparative mythology, especially the work of Joseph Campbell and his notion that “myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths.” In Reeves’ work, audiences will be prompted to question “what is real” as they wait for lightness, darkness, and shadows on stage reveal and hide what we assume to be true in the environment that the piece creates. This experience is achieved through the dancers’ interactions with projections designed by MFA Design candidate Mark Costello, with whom Reeves and Krogol have worked closely to create a “responsive” and “human powered” world in which dancers manipulate and are manipulated by lightness and darkness.

Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. explores the theme of water: crossing water, swimming across distances, and the fluidity of perceived reality

When asked which myths are most interesting to him, Reeves replied that he is drawn to Atlas because of the questions that the Greek myth conjures up: What do we carry through life? What are the journeys that we take? What are the distances between people and how do we cross them? The larger universal questions that Reeves grapples with are explored in depth and on a personal level in Krogol’s exploration of the “myths” and stories that narrate her family’s exodus from Cuba to the United States. Although Krogol did not make the journey herself, the stories that have been passed down to her are palpable and feel intimately real. Through this oral tradition, she remembers even the smallest sensory details as though she swam the journey herself, and she carries her family’s stories with her in life.

Krogol and Reeves will be joined on stage by performers Jonathan Hsu (BA Dance ‘15) and Robin Neveu Brown (MFA Dance ‘15). Their collaborations with designers have been a crucial part of the creative process, especially with Mark Costello (projection design) and Connor Dreibelbis (lighting design; MFA Design candidate), because of their choreographic interaction with lighting to create a projected reality. In this way, the lighting and projections become like dancers themselves, choreographed with precise timing and rhythm. Krogol and Reeves decided to use a completely bare set in the black box Kogod Theatre to make the contrast between light and dark more stark. They have also worked with costume designer Robert Croghan (MFA Design ‘15) to create costumes that support this theme of “remnants”--what is left behind, and what we manage to catch glimpses of.

Krogol and Reeves have worked together for over ten years, starting in their undergraduate years at the University of Florida. Over the years, they have developed a strong aesthetic and creative process through their company, Orange Grove Dance, a multi-media dance company that creates visually athletic experiences through the lenses of dance, film, and design. Their movement aesthetic emphasizes the possibilities of partnering and lifting, the relationships between people and bodies. Their past three years in the TDPS MFA Dance program has given both artist-scholars an opportunity to cultivate their own solo identities, apart from one another, through research and movement exploration. They made the distinct choice to seam their solo voices back together for this shared concert, and the result is an artistic work that is capable of exhibiting large universal ideas with the most personal and intimate details, each supporting the other and lifting the other up.