Insite

Montclair State dance students put on a diverse show of 12 assorted dance pieces choreographed by the student body. Every student brought his or her own character and personal style to their performance. Performers kicked off the show with Valsa Do Abraco, an entertaining, vibrant salsa ensemble consisting of both ballet and jazz choreography. 

Bloom, choreographed by Kelly Carroll, was an emotional performance by the female dancers. It was a very feminine dance that gave off a girl-power vibe. The girls were separated in the beginning, which gave the performance a sad tone—but slowly, one by one, the girls came together, reuniting in a pleasant ending. The red rose petals were the icing on the cake; they really fit the mood of the dance. 

The piece Breaking Judgment, choreographed and performed by Jacqueline Selesky, was fierce! The music—“Black Bull,” by Les Tambours du Bronx—really kicked off the dance. Selesky’s erotic hair and outfit went with her sharp, sassy dance moves. Her passion showed throughout the entire performance. 

Leaving the show, you have more of a respect for dance as an art form. The time and commitment that the dancers put into this work showed in the dance collage. 

Maxine Mack is an undergraduate student at Montclair State, majoring in Communications Studies with a focus on public relations.

At recent performances of Bill T. Jones’s Story/Time, we asked audiences to participate in the storytelling via a Twitter feed that was projected in the lobby. See what our audience members had to say, both about themselves and about the performance, after the jump!

Read more »

Students from Christopher Parker’s Mythology course at MSU wrote reviews of the recent Department of Theatre and Dance Production Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka. Here’s a sampling of their responses. Take a look—and feel free to add your own!  

“Montclair State University students are in fact high up on a mountain, but in the play Polaroid Stories, which is a newer day Metamorphoses, the actors are on a physical high—snow mountain. A Polaroid is a camera that develops its own film. These people are the Polaroid camera; they create their own stories. All these stories have a similar point that combine together. The actors living on the streets all have hardships. They are acting like the gods in their life situations. They bring the themes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into situations of our time, as in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, etc.” (Grace Waksmundzki) 

“Any mythology student should see this play. This play shows you that mythology is not just a bunch of old, farfetched, and made-up stories. But, it shows you that mythology has to do with human nature and behavior just like Freud suggested. The characters and events in classical mythology symbolize human actions and emotions. It has to do with love, substance abuse, incest, family problems, personal desires, and many other aspects of the spectrum of humans. Athena didn’t literally burst from her father’s forehead, but perhaps that symbolizes that she thought much like her father and that she had much in common with him in regards to intelligence. Every mythology-interested person should see this play so they will be able to recognize the relevance of classical, ancient mythology and modern life.” (Richard Link)

  Read more »

In his essay “On Cultural Power,” taken from remarks made at a 1997 debate with black playwright August Wilson, Robert Brustein states his belief in theater as a springboard for political action and the importance of inclusion when it comes to audiences’ experience:”We have had some sour experience in the twentieth century regarding efforts to regulate or improve human nature through the agency of a political system: 

Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Iran under the Ayatollah, to name a few … “’All revolutions,’ as Eugene Ionesco wrote, ‘burn the libraries of Alexandria.’ Today in American we see a similar development in what is called political correctness—which in its overzealous crusade to purge our language of offensive terms sometimes seems to be leading to what one critic has called ‘freedom from speech.’  Read more »

MSU students wrote responses to the Department of Theatre and Dance’s recent production of the Meadowlands Project. Below is a random sampling of the students’ reactions.  Read their take-aways and then add your own.  We’d love to hear from you!

“Whether you hate it while you are stuck there or not, when it comes down to it everybody loves their home town. No matter how disgusting or smelly it is, or full of snotty people, you just can’t resist it sometimes.  Loving where you are from is a key point to Rogelio Martinez’s tale of an area destroying its inhabitants. Martinez provides very good insight into how a simple act of carelessness can affect a large amount of people…. Debbie Saivetz’s direction focuses on the fact that sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands to secure the safety of our loved ones and others. All the characters tie into the same topic and bring a sense of urgency to the matter at hand. With no true ending to the story, it really shows that it is left up to us to make the outcome a happy one.” Read more »