CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The February Dance 2024 concert of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dance department will feature an ode to house music and street dance.
February Dance will be performed Feb. 1-3 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. A livestreamed performance will be available Jan. 31.
Jaymes Crowder-Acres, a senior in dance, performs in his work “Duality: Red & Blue” in November 2023.
U. of I. student Jaymes Crowder-Acres, a senior majoring in dance, choreographed “Take It to the Cypher” – his first mainstage work – for February Dance. A cypher is a term for a circle of dancers surrounding a dancer in the middle.
“I see those at parties and outside the dance world, how common it is, even dating back to ancient African dances. We use dance circles as celebrations,” Crowder-Acres said. “I was inspired by creating safe spaces where people can be authentically themselves without putting on a persona. One of places I feel most comfortable is in a cypher. While there are basic principles in club and street dances, in a cypher there are not many rules. You just go in and dance how you dance, and the audience accepts you how you are. I wanted to bring that to the stage.”
Crowder-Acres said he has choreographed dances for student productions, but “nothing of this scale.”
The work has 10 dancers, and it begins with an African dance with two circles of dancers, one inside the other. Then it moves to street- or club-style dancing to traditional house music with a strong bass line, he said.
The second half of the work features a costume change to clothes with bold patterns and colors; a graffiti wall; and funk and disco music, Crowder-Acres said.
Students perform “Take It to the Cypher” during a dress rehearsal.
Some people got a preview of the dance in an unusual venue – at halftime of the U. of I. women’s basketball game on Jan. 17.
“This piece invites the audience to participate by cheering and clapping so bringing it to a basketball game where the audience is usually at a 10 energetically was a taste of what I hope to bring into the concert space, especially as we enter the second half of the piece,” Crowder-Acres said.
In addition to his piece, February Dance features the work of four other choreographers.
Dance lecturer Elliot Reza Emadian collaborated with dance professor and dramaturg Betsy Brandt on “Frame of Reference,” a performance installation exploring the invisible forces that move our world through the juxtaposition of mathematical rhythms with vast, powerful explorations of space.
Classical Iranian dancer and MFA student Banafsheh Amiri choreographed “Shout the Call (Faryad),” a solo inspired by her Iranian heritage and representing a call for freedom.
MFA student Sojung Lim’s “Chronic Translation” expresses a precarious sense of belonging, oscillating between the cultures of the U.S. and her native South Korea and reconciling the need for constant translation between two different lives and how to endure chronic discomfort.
Anna Peretz Rogovoy‘s MFA thesis work, “Good Girl,” uses a multigenerational cast to explore notions of dominance, legacy and beauty by strategically employing gender and sexuality to either diminish or highlight individual power.
Editor’s note: More information about February Dance 2024 is available online. Tickets are available at krannercenter.com.
