BY MAKI SOMOSOT

In print | Published January 29, 2009

Bold. Evocative. Honest. These are some of the words that have been circulated to describe the performances by the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company. As the company matures into its 25th season, it has been lauded for its unique versatility, “elegance and power” and “inner fire” in communicating the complex Jewish experience through the athletic, expressive art of dance. Sponsored by the William J. Cooper Foundation, the Office of the Jewish Student Advisor and Kef, Swarthmore’s Jewish social group, this ensemble of dancers will be performing on the Swarthmore campus Friday, Jan. 30th, in LPAC at 8 pm.

Originally based in the New York/New Jersey area, CDDC is a dance company that remains highly in demand, with nationwide and international appearances in theaters, dance festivals and universities under its belt. Though comprised of only fifteen members, it is the fourth-highest paid dance company in New Jersey.

CDDC’s Artistic Director Carolyn Dorfman, a child of Holocaust survivors, feels a responsibility to her own legacy and history. Through creating provocative dances, metaphors and musical compositions, Dorfman expresses the Jewish struggle for identity. Through such visceral mediums, Dorfman has been able to create “worlds” into which the audience can then enter and discover themselves. “Each work, from Mayne Mentshn (My people) to Echad (One), Cries of Children to Odisea (Odyssey), is a ladle dipped into a historical cauldron of faith, survival and renewal,” Dorfman said on the company’s website. “Each dance reflects … the ultimate humanness that it inspired.”

For Dorfman, the Legacy Project remains an intensely personal work, which resonates deeply with her own family and childhood memories. The project represents, according to the New York Times, the “dance equivalent of a cherished book of family photographs.”

“Dorfman does not make huge statements. Her dances are little stepping stones; she uses a personal approach to confront huge problems,” Suzanne Winter ’10, a primary organizer of the upcoming event, said. “They are not only about beauty, but also about doing something to better each other.”

Winter feels that there is an emotionally universal resonance that can be found in the Legacy Project. Indeed, the Legacy Project does claim to be something substantially more than just another medium of Jewish history. “These are personal stories, not static art, bits and glimpses into humanity which are encouraging and powerful.” Winter said.

“Echad” (One), an abstract dance piece that portrays the Jewish diaspora as a whole, is remarkable for a gigantic wheel prop that the dancers mount all together. The wheel represents the ongoing human struggle that inevitably links all of us together. One dancer attempts to wrestle with the wheel, an isolated effort, as a physical metaphor for isolation and loneliness.

Of course, there is a distinctly Swarthmorean sense which is evident in the Legacy Project. “I think it’s about ethical intelligence, something which Al Bloom has always emphasized,” Winter said. In the same way that this much-referenced Swarthmore tradition involves being ethically aware and responsible for one’s surrounding social community, the Legacy Project tries to open minds further to the horrors of the Holocaust and its continuing repercussions in Jewish culture and society today. Through a much bigger lens, it evokes common human struggles of leaving home’s familiar comforts and re-integrating oneself into an entirely different world and mindset.

Since founding the Company in 1982, Dorfman has created more than fifty creative works and continues to lead with an innovative, dynamic vision. The other fourteen members of the Company form a versatile, unique and contemporary dance ensemble. The CDDC is also a proactive force. The audience is drawn directly into Dorfman’s unique personal worlds,through post-performance lectures, master classes and meet-the-artists gatherings.

Today, Dorfman will present a lecture titled, “Creating Art as a Child of Survivors” at 1:15 pm in the Scheuer Room. In addition to this, a master dance class will also take place at 4:30 pm in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio.

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