By Rafael Rodriguez / Staff Writer
By Rafael Rodriguez / Staff Writer
“UCR is Dancing” is an annual production of the department of dance at University of California Riverside that showcases the performers and dance majors of UCR.
All of the dances performed were wide and varied spanning different genres, from hip hop to ballet; or ballroom to breakdance, but each having a performer’s own interpretation or style.
The show started off fairly slow with the first three performances of “Embrace,” “Resonance,” and “For All Girls and Everyone Alike.”
Each of these performances were played to slow music and had few dancers on stage, giving off a quiet sort of atmosphere.
“Embrace,” choreographed by Sandra Schmid, opened the show and had a few performer’s on stage, each dancing to a song that resembled a sort-of jungle or tribal theme, each one taking a spot on the stage and occasionally interacting with each other by holding hands and moving in circular motion.
The show’s second dance “Resonance,” took place on stage with a prop of what looked like the audience seats.
The entertainers then each took a turn of getting off of said seats and ran around the stage before retaking their seat, meanwhile in the background the music heard was nothing more than a car-revving its engine, which didn’t really set up much of an atmosphere or give off much emotion.
“For All Girls and Everyone Alike,” choreographed by Gina Lee, a dance major at UCR, followed soon after.
This one was rather interesting as the dancers each had danced to lyrics of different types of media from lyrucs to Lupe Fiasco’s “Baba says Cool” to a clip of the movie, “For Colored Girls.”
They would dance to the lyrics and showed emphasis in their moves when needed, but overall the performers seemed to do more running than actual dancing.
It wasn’t until after these performances that the show started to pick up.
Each successive act had something interesting going for it.
For example, “Finish the Line,” choreographed by Brandon Wagner, was very interesting as the performers spent most of their time on the floor, kind of gyrating in a sense picking each other up and carrying others on and off the stage, all the while an eerie toy box sounding chime was playing, seemingly making it as if the dancers themselves were dolls or mannequins to be placed however they placed.
Another interesting act that followed was Luis Lopez-Maldonado’s piece, “Social Loquera: Transparent Me.”
In this piece the performers all appeared in green tutus and they would all dance to a song by Javon James who was playing the piano in background.
By far the most eye catching performance of the night would have to be “Love Dance, Actually!” choreographed by Brooke Rafferty.
In this number many of the dancers came in and danced in what looked like a prom night setting, with every male having a female companion to dance along with.
As the music would change so would the energy performers would give off. It was quite a spectacular sight to watch.
“UCR is Dancing” may have started off slow, but after a few acts came and went it started to pick up. The performers’ energy was exuberant and when they interacted with each other on stage they were enjoyable to watch.
