Faculty and students participate in European performing Arts Festival

Performing art is more than television?s Dancing with the Stars or summer movie blockbusters. Jennifer Smith, Director of Dance at Knox College, has the beat on true performing arts. Smith took her skills as a dancer and choreographer along with four Knox students to "The International Choreographers? Showcase," a presentation of Dance-Forms Productions, during the closing weekend of the Festival d'Avignon in France this summer. According to Smith, the festival is Europe's oldest performing Arts Festival of its kind.

The Knox dance troupe  consists of Knox students Molly Nicholas '09, Megan Hall '08, Megan Krenz '08 and Jessica Strache '08. Knox faculty member Craig Choma contributed to set design while Hall and Nicholas contributed to the costumes for the performance. 

They attended the annual festival, which is a 58-year-old tradition that draws hundreds of artists to perform dance, theater, mime and music, as well as to network with directors, producers and other artists.

Smith?s dance piece, ?re-Action? is a multi-media piece that includes a video created by Chicago filmmaker Ben Vance with lighting design by Choma. The project was started in 2000 when Smith began working on it as a trio. ?In 2007, I remanded the work to be a larger group piece about ten minutes long,? Smith says.  "Thematically speaking, my piece is about movement and water, and the combination of the two."
 
Smith says her dance piece is a modern dance/contemporary piece.  ?It is the basis of my dance background and the foundation of the Knox College Dance Program,? she says.  While it is being performed by four Knox students and has two Knox faculty members involved with it, Smith is presenting it as a collaborative effort between the Knox College Dance program and her professional dance company, Back and to the Left Productions. Smith hopes this will lead to other international performing opportunities.

Smith and Choma received faculty research funding for the project, and the four students received Richter funding as well. The Knox students say they hope their performance in France allows Smith to incorporate new ideas of choreography and technique, as well as possible guest artists, into her teaching at Knox.

?This is exciting to me as a dancer. The experience will not only help me in pursuing my love for dance, but also relates to my academic goals and my major in International Relations as well,? Strache says. ?Dance is a wonderful way to express concerns about political, social, and cultural systems and realities.?

While the enthusiasm for their performance shows, it's the group's commitment to their rehearsals that makes their movements so precise.

?We began work on the piece as a group when we returned from winter break and everyone had enthusiastically agreed to participate,? Hall, a psychology major, says.

?For a group of Knox dance students to be performing in France is exciting for us as well as the Knox dance program.  It is progressing at a very rapid pace.  Participation in Knox?s Terpsichore Dance Collective studio concerts has nearly doubled in the last two years, and we anticipate more growth,? she adds.

Smith not only teaches numerous dance classes, but has choreographed many theater and dance productions and performed with local dance groups. In 1999, she was named one of ?30 Young Show-Stoppers under 30? by the Chicago Tribune.