The Mesa College Dance Company presented the fruits of this semester’s labor at their showcase Beyondance April 30 through May 2 at Horton Plaza’s Lyceum Theatre.
The 15 dance numbers in Beyondance were entirely student choreographed and dealt with a variety of themes, including nature, love, finding fun in the daily grind of work, the battle of the sexes, abuse, and post-traumatic stress. All of the dancers featured in the show participate in the dance performance class, where different forms of dance are taught and students hone their stage performance skills.
“The dancers were really into it,” said Katie Reyburn, a 23-year-old business major at Mesa. “They really immersed themselves emotionally in the movement and the music.”
Many students from the dance performance class auditioned to have their choreography featured in Beyondance but only 15 were chosen. The well-rounded program featured pieces of modern, jazz, ballet, tap, hip-hop, belly dance and several numbers that fused multiple dance forms.
“At the end, I felt better watching the dancers dancing my work than I would dancing myself,” said student choreographer Emilie Lancry. “It feels like a bigger achievement because you can really enjoy the fact that people are responding to your vision and the dancers are delivering your vision, so it’s just amazing to be a part of it.”
The student choreographers used creative ways of presenting their dance numbers. Two of the pieces began with dancers entering the stage from the audience, while others set tap dances over hip hop songs and hip hop pieces over country songs.
“I liked how two of the numbers used the audience,” said 19-year-old dance major Alycia Torres. “It seemed like they came out of nowhere and I thought that was really cool.”
Ellye O’Brien is majoring in physiology and neuroscience and plans to transfer to UCSD. She says she started taking dance at Mesa for fun and one class led to another. This is her first semester choreographing for the Mesa College Dance Company. Her modern dance piece, “Pangea,” portrayed a soldier returning home from war and struggling to reassimilate into society.
“The message I tried to convey with this dance is ‘let’s see ourselves in each other, wake up from what we’re doing and be here for each other,'” said O’Brien.
Student choreographer Lindsay Lundgren broke her knee 2 years ago and underwent surgery during the final week of rehearsal. She finished her jazz piece, titled, “The Butterfly Lounge,” on the Wednesday before the show and went into surgery on Thursday.
“We put a lot of hard work into it and it’s really cool to see the different pieces and ideas and how different they all are,” said Lundgren. “The Mesa dance department has been around for a long time and I think students in the school should get more involved because it’s so much fun.”
Mesa students interested in performing in the next show are encouraged to enroll in the dance performance class in the fall, which only requires one additional technique class.