DCDC dancers explain their art

Credit: Lisa Powell

Credit: Lisa Powell


WANT TO GO?

What: “Etchings” by the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

When: 7:30 p.m. Sat. Feb. 20 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21

Where: Eichelberger Theatre, Stivers School for the Arts, 1313 East Fifth Street, Dayton

Tickets: $25, $35, $45 at (937) 228-3630 or www.ticketcenterstage.com

I’m no dancer. Most days, it’s questionable whether I’m even coordinated. So I’ve always been curious about what it’s like to be a performer with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.

Years ago, I spent time with the company for a story about Sheri “Sparkle” Williams. At the time, she had been dancing with DCDC for 30 years. I was amazed by her work ethic and her tremendous love for dance. Now in her 42nd season with the company, she’s still at it.

How do she and the other dancers keep their bodies conditioned? What are they thinking about when they dance? What does it feel like to possess a body that would allow you to vault across a dance studio floor or to saunter across a stage in front of an audience?

The dancers were gracious enough to recently help me understand what inspires them to dance, how they nail down choreography and to describe the daily beating that transforms their feet into cuts, calluses and blisters.

I sat down with five dancers at DCDC’s Dayton studio on Germantown Street during a break in rehearsal last week. I showed them photos I had taken of them rehearsing and asked them to explain what was happening on a deeper level in these captured moments for a project.

I had no idea how they might react to questions that I feared might have seemed silly or probing to them. I am grateful they obliged and gave me a glimpse into the depth of passion they have for their craft.

“What would I like people to know about dance?” Williams said. “It’s a joyous thing to participate in. It can do many things to the viewer as well. It can be healing I’ve found. Whatever people are going through, they can see a work and go, ‘Oh I needed that.’ It allowed them to release something through whatever is going on onstage.”

DCDC is uniquely Dayton. It is Ohio’s oldest modern dance company and has earned worldwide acclaim. The dancers come to DCDC from different backgrounds, but they share a mutual devotion to the joy of dance and faith the community will appreciate the dedication they have for their art.

To hear them describe that devotion and dedication was, at times, an emotional experience.

“Dance is the expression of your entire soul,” said Michael Green, a ninth-year DCDC member. “It’s not just steps it is the physicality of emotion it is the physicality of thought. Sometimes you can’t express yourself through words and so dance becomes your outlet. It becomes your movement that can tell the things you don’t mean to say but you really want to say."

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