Sally Holm
Japanese Middle Schoolers Visit a Very Personal Shrine All was quiet one chilly morning on the Hill as spring break was winding down. A flash of color and excited young voices broke the stillness as 53 adolescents from a school affiliated with Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, burst on the scene. The youngsters were on a Boston tour, sporting Red Sox paraphernalia and shy smiles, sightseeing on the campus where their school’s founder had himself been educated. Joseph Hardy Neesima, Class of 1868, went home with a PA education and started Doshisha School and College. He was the subject of a Thorndike research paper published in the spring 2012 Andover magazine. The students gathered around the monument to Neesima near Bulfinch Hall, displaying a universal sign of peace. Earlier that morning, they had been treated to spear throwing and a scavenger hunt at the Peabody Museum and a tour of the Addison Gallery.
Flow, a Meditation on the Connection between Humankind and the Natural World Take the masterful, creative vision of longtime Andover dance instructor Judith Wombwell and add the videographic talent of Faculty Emeritus Stephen Wicks and you have a uniquely Andover collaboration that is at once beautiful and deeply meaningful. Flow, a dance narrative on camera, combines the beauty of dance and interpretation with the lushness of nature as a trio of dancers explores unfamiliar surroundings with all their senses as they follow a pristine forest stream to its source in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Three dancers from Wombwell’s DeadFall Dance Company—including Erin Strong, chair of theatre and dance, and Renee Amirault ’07—performed the unique creation, which Wombwell choreographed and Wicks recorded. The late February presentation, which also included a live dance called White, based on the choreography of Flow, was performed in late February in Kemper Auditorium. The Abbot Academy Association provided a major portion of the funding for the collaboration.
Judith Womb well
Stephen Wicks
Andover | Spring 2013
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