Georgia College students land the opportunity to work with a world-renown dance company

Drawing on various abilities and disabilities, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange from Washington, D.C., showcases dance styles unlike any other company.

Visiting from April 17 to April 20, the Dance Exchange gave a handful of students a unique experience: the opportunity to dance with them.

Dance minors, theatre majors and other Georgia College students as well as members of the Milledgeville community began practicing April 17.

The show’s theme was distance and journey, which was brought to life by choreographer and dancer Cassie Meador. One of the defining features of the choreography was improvisation. Junior pre-engineering major Morris Jones III really enjoyed this feature of the dance.

“The dance is really cool because we first learned the base choreography and then we felt that out so we could make movements to match,” Jones explained. “I’m used to improvisation so it wasn’t as challenging for me.”

The “one to 10” dance was one of the many pieces that exemplified the improvisation aspect of the choreography. This dance involved the student’s familiarity with the measurements of the human body and comprehending how that tied in with the theme of the entire show.

“You have to understand the theme that they are trying to get across to understand the dance,” Jones said.

The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange is also known for working with a wide variety of people.

 

During the show, a clip was shown of one of the Dance Exchange’s members, a man in his 70s, performing a piece entitled “Blue Sky.”

Stephanie Miracle, who has been with the company for one and a half years, enjoys working intergenerationally.

“I like working with Liz Lerman more than any other standard dance company because there’s a lot of diversity,” Miracle said. “The older dancers bring life experience which is wonderful to have.”

The show on April 20 did not showcase the older members of the exchange, but there were dancers with various disabilities.

Jones really liked working with all of the different people.

“Working with handicapped people was a different take for me, but I was intrigued by the fact that it was different than other kinds of dancing,” Jones said.

Others who participated enjoyed being able to work with so many different people.

“It was beautiful getting to dance with such a wide variety of people,” said  Leah Keelan, a sophomore theatre major.

During practices that were held April 17 through April 20, Keelan quickly realized that doing the choreography was more than just simply going through the motions.

“It wasn’t something you could just learn,” Keelan said. “You had to really immerse yourself and do it.”