"Dance is such an ephemeral art. Music can make something and commodify it, and theatre can publish a script to be replicated over and over. With dance there is always a push for something new. With the addition of film as a medium there gets to be an element that lives on past the ephemeral stage moment we are used to."

– Tanya Calamoneri

In conjunction with the TTU School of Theatre and Dance 2020-2021 season, Fall Dance Festival started with the theme of "The Personal and the Political." A team of student choreographers and dancers worked together to respond to our current world climate on topics such as relationships, social distancing, and cognitive disconnect through an oftentimes abstracted lens.

The one caveat is transitioning from stage to film.

Choreographers were given a crash course in editing, as well as the opportunity for additional collaboration with filmmakers. Dr. Tanya Calamoneri, one of the faculty supervisors of Fall Dance Festival, then asked each choreographer to alter their approach by challenging the mathematics of performance that they have come to know and study.

How will the addition of film change the way an audience sees a performance? How will they work with light and architecture, entrances and exits, to serve a virtual audience?

For starters, viewers are no longer bound to a fixed seat as they would be in a stage setting. The movement of both the choreography and the positioning of the camera creates opportunities for audiences to feel like part of the production through their perspectives. The construct of time can be shaped through the editing between clips all the while dealing with the proximity barrier of a global pandemic.

Choreographers, using innovation and imagination, had to find new ways of connecting through space while social distancing: creating desire through distant kinesthetic response and gaze but without touch.

One example of a piece that highlights our current global restriction is also serving as graduate student Yvonne Racz Key's (MFA Performance & Pedagogy, Dec. 2020) thesis project. With her original project of Guys & Dolls (music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) being cancelled last spring due to the pandemic, Racz Key provides a documentary style journey of the choreography she made for the original production, with the current version staged for social distancing. She explains that "the loss of a visceral audience poses the challenge of redefining what that element means." The use of color editing and juxtaposition of video drives the narrative of her thesis.

These two different mediums of storytelling collide to enhance the experiences that Texas Tech Students are going through during the ever-changing time of 2020.

"It's like performing in the round on a more heightened level," says Calamoneri. "It's a really good experience for everyone to be resourceful. Once you start working in the professional world, you don't always have a production team behind you. You don't necessarily have a proscenium stage with color changing lights. You are going to be performing in an alleyway, and this project is giving performers the skills to adapt, specifically, in a world that is constantly changing."

This year's Fall Dance Festival will be shown at the Stars & Stripes Drive-In Theater at 7:30pm on November 20. Tickets are $15 per car and must be purchased in advance through the School of Theatre and Dance website. Tickets will not be sold at the Stars and Stripes Drive-In.