Backhausdance
Another visiting dance company works with Thacher's dancers.
Gallia Vickery, director of Thacher's dance program, works to bring a professional dance company to Thacher annually. "Most dancers train with a few different teachers and work with different choreographers to expand their understanding of technique, broaden their dance vocabulary, and help them think creatively," she remarks. "Since the Thacher Dance Program is small and the dancers have only me as teacher and choreographer, it is important that they are exposed to other experiences. The Thacher dancers are quite accomplished; they are ready to see how professionals work."
Last year, the girls worked with Diavolo Dance Company to incorporate unique architectural structures into dance. This year, the dancers worked with Backhausdance, whose mission is to create excellent art and expose and educate the community about the relevance and vitality of concert dance.
Jennifer Backhaus, the company's artistic director, and four of the company's eight dancers came to Thacher and worked with Thacher's Dance Ensemble for eleven hours over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Their hard work together culminated in a group performance and two Thacher girls demonstrated their individually choreographed solos for the audience.
"One of the things the dancers enjoyed most was creating their own solos," reported Ms. Vickery. "They were given verb commands like reach, push, snap, avoid, dab, punch, and then locations in the space of the cube around them. This pushed them to create new and truly original movement phrases, rather than rely on dance 'steps' that they knew."
Pria Koll '18 seconded Ms. Vickery's notion by seeing the value in not relying on counts, but rather pulling from her own imagination to create dance movements based on verbs.
The greatest benefit of the whole experience was the opportunity for the dancers to work closely together over an extended period of time; they get to know each other better and learn to dance together more cooperatively and more fluidly.
Back
Last year, the girls worked with Diavolo Dance Company to incorporate unique architectural structures into dance. This year, the dancers worked with Backhausdance, whose mission is to create excellent art and expose and educate the community about the relevance and vitality of concert dance.
Jennifer Backhaus, the company's artistic director, and four of the company's eight dancers came to Thacher and worked with Thacher's Dance Ensemble for eleven hours over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Their hard work together culminated in a group performance and two Thacher girls demonstrated their individually choreographed solos for the audience.
"One of the things the dancers enjoyed most was creating their own solos," reported Ms. Vickery. "They were given verb commands like reach, push, snap, avoid, dab, punch, and then locations in the space of the cube around them. This pushed them to create new and truly original movement phrases, rather than rely on dance 'steps' that they knew."
Pria Koll '18 seconded Ms. Vickery's notion by seeing the value in not relying on counts, but rather pulling from her own imagination to create dance movements based on verbs.
The greatest benefit of the whole experience was the opportunity for the dancers to work closely together over an extended period of time; they get to know each other better and learn to dance together more cooperatively and more fluidly.
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A college preparatory boarding school for grades 9-12
Notice of nondiscriminatory policy as to students: The Thacher School admits students of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national, and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other School-administered programs.