BY ALLIE BROWN | The Statesman I have been a dancer for my entire life and I love to watch others dance so I was very excited when I found out UMD Theatre was doing a dance show.
DanceWorks was a series of dances choreographed by students. Often when you go to see a ballet performance, it was choreographed years ago and is performed the same way over and over. With DanceWorks, not only are the dances choreographed by students but they are brand-new dances.
My favorite aspect of the show was the way the dances all told stories. Numbers such as “Missing You” and “Escaping the Pigeon Hole” were especially story-like. It made me become more invested in the dances and made the show more interesting to watch.
Something else that was well done was the lighting. The lighting changed to match the mood of the dance. Sometimes it would even change within the dance to help progress the story. I thought it definitely added a cool element that isn’t in all dance shows.
However, the one annoying thing that would happen with the lights was that between each dance the house lights would come on for about thirty seconds and then turn back off. This was distracting and definitely brought me out of the show each time.
I was very impressed by all of the dancers, but especially by the male dancers. As a dancer, I know that it can be hard to find serious male dancers who really care about the art. Many either quit around middle-school age or they stop caring as much, but these dancers were really into it and were very good.
My favorite dance was “XO,” the last dance before intermission. It was a hip-hop dance. Generally, hip-hop is my least favorite type of dance, but I really liked this particular number because of the energy the dancers brought to it. Everyone was sharp and together. It was a great ending to that part of the show.
Overall, I thought DanceWorks was an entertaining show. The dancing was pretty good, especially considering that they hadn’t been working on the dances for very long. It was a fun show.