MORE CHANCES TO DANCE Students take part in a number of clubs devoted to movement, culture and performance: • Ballroom Dancing Club • Bhangra Group • Hip Hop Club • U-Break (Breakdancing Club) • Union Dance Team
Top: Alvin Andino '15, left, and David Thai '17 in "The City" Bottom: Ayanna Vinson-Dobson ’11 and others in "Theater of Worlds" (Photos by Charles Steckler)
IN THE BEGINNING Dance first animated the Union campus through a weekly non-credit class given in Old Chapel and Jackson’s Garden by Gail George, dance therapist and the wife of Carl George, professor (now emeritus) of biology, more than three decades ago. The free course drew Union’s young men as well as engineers and physicists from nearby General Electric. As Michael Sherer ’75, remembers, “Gail George bestowed upon us her love of dance.” Gail George died in 2008.
“Performing the study on my dancer friends, I made connections between technique and strain on the body. This was exactly the type of interdisciplinary project that I had hoped to complete. It combined my two passions into one.” Above all, dance provides a joyous expression of the individual spirit. This is especially evident each year at the Winter Dance Concert, which showcases original choreography based on conceptual themes. This year, 28 students appeared in five performances of “The City,” a splashy tribute to life and art in the Big Apple. “This was a great experience for me,” said David Thai ’17. He and Alvin Andino ’15 captivated audiences with their bravura breakdancing. “I’m only a freshman but am doing big things already,” said Thai, of Boston, who has been break dancing since middle school and was thrilled to find an outlet for his peripatetic talents at Union. He and Andino are members of U-Break, one of many student performing clubs that complement the dance program. Moutillet, meanwhile, credits her new home in the Henle Pavilion as imbuing this year’s Winter Dance Concert with a deeper sense of accomplishment. “This building has been inspirational,” she said. “It's perfect for harnessing all sorts of creative energy. We have space. We have light. We can move. We can collaborate. Working and dancing here are so uplifting.”
To learn more about dance at Union and read a profile of alumna dancer Krystle Gallo ’12, visit www.union.edu/magazine Spring 2014 UNION COLLEGE
| 21