The Experimental Dance Board (EDB) showcase, featuring 100% student choreographed and performed pieces, took place Friday and Saturday, February 12-13, 2016.
The EDB was created by Ellis Johnston ’16, Torre Edhal ’14, Rachel Clark ’15, and Kate Cieslowski ’15, in 2013 to provide intensive choreography and performance opportunities to all students regardless of previous experience. The founders recognized that there was a growing interest in dance and that Carleton lacked the organizations or venues to accommodate that interest.
EDB brings together a very diverse but tight-knit community of dancers together who represent a wide myriad of dance backgrounds, including tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop, and modern.
On her experience in EDB, Johnston is excited that “each choreographer and dancer brings their own creative energy to rehearsals.” She says: “I am always so inspired by the students who come to EDB with minimal to no ‘formal’ dance training; I hope EDB helps people see that dance can come from anywhere and anyone. Dancing at Carleton has shown me that the arts have the power to communicate. It’s not just about moving and looking pretty, it’s about making people feel and think.”
The piece that she choreographed for this show focuses around the Black Lives Matter movement. Johnston wanted to explore ways that she could use dancing as a medium of expressing passion for social justice and voices as allies of the movement. Although choreographing a piece around such a political and controversial racial topic has, as she says, “definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone,” it is something she believes people coming from places of privilege need to embrace.
Ann Treesa Joy ’16 appreciates that EDB’s community is so committed to putting out quality work and that each dance invests a lot of time into each piece. The piece that she choreographed, titled “Trying to Catch the Struggle Bus Going at 100 mph,” is about the struggles with everyday events: people missed or lost, relationships hanging by a thread, keeping oneself afloat in a hectic world.
For Cameron Wright ’16, both dancing and choreographing for EDB “have been exceptionally formative for [my] development as a dancer and…has largely assisted my understanding and appreciation of natural movement in choreography.” The piece that Wright created for this show was largely based on the idea of music visualization; he worked to construct choreography that visually portrays how the song “Egomind,” by Choys, sounded to him and explores the idea of the body as an instrument through which the music is experienced. The dance itself is not intended to be exceptionally conceptual or symbolic; greater focus was placed on conveying the beauty of the music itself.
EDB dances, although ranging in styles, concepts, and inspirations, are united in their illustration of Carleton students’ creativity, commitment to dance, and hard work.