CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The January Dance performance of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dance department features works that are inspired by supermodels, reflect the struggle for racial justice and imagine the spell a group of women are conjuring in a forest.
January Dance is Jan. 29-31 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. It is the second performance this season to celebrate the work of Black faculty members, students and guest artists through the theme of “Black on Black: A Celebration of Black Dance.”
Dance professor Alexandra Barbier, who is the director of January Dance, said it includes a variety of techniques and aesthetics “so we can share a range of what Black dance can be, rather than saying Black dance looks one particular way. It’s diverse and unexpected. It will leave people with a lot to think about as they exit the show.”
Barbier choreographed one of the pieces in the January Dance concert. “The Way She Wears It” was inspired by the fashion industry and supermodels, both of which Barbier had a deep interest in as a child. Her work is inspired by the dance style of voguing.
“It takes lot of inspiration from the supermodel world as well. The postures you might see as models are posing in print magazines or walking down the runway informed a lot of the movement vocabulary,” she said. “It’s very whimsical and playful.”
Barbier’s work is often humorous, and she describes this piece as “over the top and ridiculous.” The dancers wear flesh-toned clothing that they continue to layer in nonsensical, absurd ways as the dance progresses. It’s a nod to high fashion that often shows models wearing clothing that would never be worn in the everyday world, Barbier said.
Dance graduate student Nik Owens is a former gymnast and gymnastics coach and a former David Dorfman Dance Company member, and his choreography in “Taking Care of the Dirt” is hyperathletic.
Owens said the piece looks at the intersections of race, sexuality and geography, including the practice of redlining, or excluding people from certain neighborhoods based on race. He grew up in Altadena, California, which he said was unofficially bisected between the Black neighborhoods and the more affluent white neighborhoods. Owens grew up in a white neighborhood where he felt disconnected from his Blackness. He said the work reflects the rules he used to navigate his white environment, and his choreography portrays a fast-paced, vibratory state needed to release the racial dissonance he felt.
The lighting and music reflect the duality of his experience. A spotlight scans across the stage, bisecting it and leaving part of it lit and part of it in darkness. The dancers are segregated into one space or the other. The original music includes two works, one inspired by a drumline and the other a dissonant droning, that are played at the same time.
January Dance includes the work of two Illinois alumnae. Ty Lewis is a lecturer with the Illinois dance department. Her work “Gleaming Grasshoppers” features a group of female dancers conjuring something in the middle of a forest. Barbier described the work as “a little witchy, a little ethereal and a little magical. We’re not completely sure what the spell is they are conjuring, but we know they are up to something important and something world-shifting.”
She said the work is very theatrical and more magical than spooky.
Laina Reese Werner-Powell is a faculty member of the Illinois State University dance department. Her work “Echoes of the Unbroken; The Revolution Will Dance,” like Owens’, is very athletic, Barbier said.
“Everyone who watches it, by the end, we’re all panting with the dancers. It is a whirlwind of energy,” she said.
The work is described as a reclamation of joy, movement, resilience and resistance. It uses percussive movement and communal rhythms to channel not just rage, but joy and defiance.
“This work explores the tension between innocence lost and power reclaimed. The revolution is not just political; it is personal and embodied,” Werner-Powell wrote in the program notes.
Editor’s note: To contact Alexandra Barbier, email abarb@illinois.edu.
