“I suppose it’s like the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us.”-J.M. Barrie

A part of this piece will be shown at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Junior-Senior Choreographer’s Concert on March 31st and April 1st.  The final work will debut online at a later date.

This piece includes six parts, or chapters, that each conveys a different aspect of growing up. It explores the emotions we feel as we find our niche in this world, the excitement of growing up and having new opportunities opened to us.  Finally, it allows for reflection and longing of our youthful past as we realize we are where we once yearned to be.  An Afterthought was heavily influenced by my love for J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

In the process of creating this piece, I wanted to challenge myself to create a literal narrative and explore the art of storytelling through dance, using characters, costuming, lighting, and music to progress a plotline rather than create an abstract movement that represented a theme.

Throughout planning each of the six sections, I wanted to carefully plan the movement, gestures, and motifs.  Each section would be different in movement vocabulary and music but flow into the next piece seamlessly.  I wanted the collective piece to arc from pedestrian movement to full blown concert dance in the same manner costumes change from “real people clothes” to dance costumes.

This piece has a heavy sense of nostalgia.  Throughout the never-ending rehearsals with my cast, we often discussed activities we used to do as kids; play outside, jump rope, hopscotch, try catching butterflies, play on the seesaw at the jungle gym, and more.  These activities influenced many of the movements in the opening dance in addition to its youthful, joyous ambiance.  Additionally, we discussed common actions we did or do as teenagers; listen to music, text, spend all day shopping with friends, instant message online for hours on end, etc.  these ideas formulated into gestures added into the first piece, and inspired a second piece examining self-exploration.

Finally, we discussed our opinions and misconceptions about “adult life” from an undergraduate perspective.  Some of my dancers are first years who just began their collegiate career.  Others are seniors, like myself, who will be entering the dark “real world” shortly in the upcoming months.  A common theme found through discussion is that we have an idea of the working adult life as something rigorous, monotonous, repetitive, and stiff.  These ideas of the adult life gave way to a rigid, arduous, and robotic-like climactic piece.

As the piece had to be edited for the performance, I chose to present the ending piece.  The last piece expresses the thoughts of indecision of planning for the future.  Throughout cast discussions about stages of growing up, many dancers discussed thoughts they had at ten or twelve years old wanting to be a “responsible teenager” who could drive and “be free”.  Others discussed how stressful their college life is and wished they could just go back to high school.  It seems that at every stage in life we are both looking towards the future for something new and unexpected, but also seeking comfort in the past.  The piece highlights these back and forth thoughts.