The audience filling the Garrison Theatre held its breath as the stage curtains drew open and this year’s Scripps Dances began. On the weekend of April 11, the Scripps College Dance Department welcomed family, friends and 5C community members to their annual spring showcase.
Recurring every year as a culmination of the department’s work, this year’s concert “Reflect[ed] a variety of contemporary dance styles … celebrating identity, community and joy,” according to the department’s website.
Dance department lecturer, choreographer and educator Phylise Smith spoke about the process of putting together this year’s collection of dances, bringing together disparate pieces to create a cohesive production that explored themes of time, ancestry and power.
“Students worked on these themes and then came together to form a community: representing their dance, connected with the other [dances], and creating a unified whole: the concert,” Smith said.
The show began with a number titled “Shifting Consciously,” which brought to life the choreography of renowned artist Peter Chu, with the help of visiting artists and educators Krystal Matsuyama-Tsai and Waeli Wang.
Following the opening performance was an exciting variety of student, visitor and faculty choreography. Ranging from the emotional and reflective “She’s My Mirror,” which grappled with self-image, relationships and sisterhood, to “Money Machine,” a high-energy performance with dancers in suits that resembled “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Tierney O’Keefe SC ’25, who choreographed “Money Machine,” sought to match the energy of the piece’s backing songs through the movement of hip-hop and theatrics. Calling choreography a “mind-centered task,” O’Keefe elaborated on their process.
“On the weekend of April 11, the Scripps College Dance Department welcomed family, friends and 5C community members to their annual spring showcase. “
“Listening to the lyrics, I was really getting this sense of hedonism and money and power and trying to figure out the storyline that would go along with what I would be portraying on stage,” O’Keefe said.
Alongside student pieces were new works choreographed by Scripps faculty Suchi Branfman and Smith. The choreographers collaborated with dancers to realize pieces such as Branfman’s “Toward North Star,” which was created in solidarity with figures like Dajerria Becton, a Black woman who was violently arrested as a teenager at a pool party in 2015.
This piece “honors the mothers and grandmothers, the aunties, sisters and siblings who have carried the world on their shoulders,” according to the show’s program.
In “Dance For The Ancestors,” a piece by Smith, dancers moved to a voiceover recording of each performer speaking about their love for dance, accompanied by traditional West African dance rhythms performed live on stage.
Smith described the piece as “an homage to Afro Beat, what dance represents to an individual and a performance of traditional West African dance.”
It was clear that the dancers put measurable time and effort into their performances. They carried the show’s themes of identity, community and joy behind the scenes just as much as onstage.
O’Keefe shared that, when putting together an ensemble for “Money Machine,” they sought to “hone in on people’s personal strengths and create solos for people where their strengths would be highlighted.”
Smith detailed the harmony and community that were fostered during the making of the show, describing how students bonded through the shared experience of performing.
“Students are aware that they are in the performance together,” Smith said, stressing the sense of unity fostered between dancers both in rehearsal and behind the scenes.
Dancer Emma Wei SC ’27 described the hard work of rehearsal, as well as the fun and exciting environment backstage.
“For each dance, we generally rehearse once a week for one to two hours for the entire semester leading up to the show. A lot of jokes and general tomfoolery goes on behind the scenes, even right before we go on stage in the wings.”
Presenting a year’s worth of collaboration and choreography, this year’s Scripps Dances featured an abundance of creativity, passion and, at the heart of everything, a shared love for dance.
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