The Swarthmore dance department has grown exponentially over the past few years. Within the past decade alone, it has expanded from a co-department with music into a thriving and vibrant community of artists, composed of majors, minors, and students taking their first dance classes. This immense shift is exemplified in the creation of the Senior Dance Concert, a new performance opportunity for senior dance majors to present their final choreographic work. Historically, senior pieces have been a part of the semesterly dance concerts, yet due to the number of choreographers and performers, the decision was made to add an additional performance to the end-of-semester showlist.
This show featured the works of four of the eight senior dance majors/minors: Emily McClung ’26’s “broomsedge” and “Happy Un-Birthday,” Gabby Nash ’26’s “With You,” Justin Hohn ’26’s “z00ch0s1s,” and Finn Verdonk ’26’s “whalefall.” As an audience member, watching this show was absolutely incredible. Seeing classmates take the stage in ways I had never seen before — and watching how the choreographers so masterfully and creatively used the Lang Performing Arts Center (LPAC) stage to tell their diverse stories — was breathtaking.
Among the endless amazing features of each piece, things that have stuck with me since this weekend are McClung’s distinct yet cohesive solos in collaboration with the ensemble; Nash’s intentionality with using mirrors, both choreographically and performatively; Hohn’s expansive use of the physical space as a solo artist; and Verdonk’s storytelling and world-building. On a personal note, this particular set of pieces was wonderful to see as a fellow dance major, not only to support my peers but also to take notes for my own senior project in the future.
After the opening show on Saturday, April 11, I stayed to listen to the post-show talkback, facilitated by Simone Gingerich-Boberg ’26. The four seniors were given the opportunity to share insight into their choreographic processes, inspirations, challenges, and other aspects of their projects that were not stated in the program notes.
Gingerich-Boberg asked the choreographers to summarize their pieces into a sentence.
Verdonk stated, “I was very interested in using the long fabric to create imagery and an immersive world, as well as presenting a ritualized space.” Nash followed, “It was really interesting exploring the dancers’ experience, particularly with mirrors, and their relationship with it, focusing on vulnerability, frustration, and perfectionism.” McClung noted, “I was interested in exploring this character and setting-based world that really played with time and imagery within some of the different scenes throughout.” Hohn concluded, “I wanted to explore the concept of life being a performance, and that performance being almost like a cage, meeting and rejecting these societal standards, and experimenting with either succumbing to it or taking back power.”
Gingerich-Boberg prompted another question, asking specifically about the use of props, both as an extension of the piece and a challenge within rehearsals. Verdonk replied:
I have used props since the earliest time I created choreography. In a middle school choreography workshop, I was like, “What if everybody wants scarves?” Even when I took Dance Lab II and presented the work on the stage, I used big blocks, with letters on them. Last semester in Professor Joe Small ’05’s Honors Choreography Seminar, I really focused on how the prop can dictate the movement and where the line of “too much” lies. In preparation for this project, I wanted one — though technically two — really long pieces of fabric and to use that fabric very intentionally. I let the fabric dictate what the movement was, not trying to think about how I, as the dancer or choreographer, manipulate the fabric. Instead, [I explored] how the fabric is manipulating me. How is the fabric telling me as a choreographer what the next sequence of movements needs to be?
The next question was specific to Hohn, asking about his decision not to include a program note with his solo. He elaborated on his decision:
The inspiration for the work draws on my own experience in multiple ways — my experience in school, my experience as a dancer, my experience in society. I was thinking about what those stereotypical expectations are set on me. What are the goals that are set for me, and what are the boundaries? Zoochosis is the concept that zoo animals, when they’re in captivity, experience psychological degeneration, manifesting in repetitive movements and a loss of natural responses, becoming a shell of an animal. And I thought, does that happen in humans as well? So often, we as dancers and performers are told to strip our humanity to enter a role where you have to embody someone else or embody a story of a person you’ve never experienced — having to set yourself into another’s shoes. I really wanted to showcase that by entering the house and walking down as a kind of stripping my humanity, entering this world, which was the stage. I wanted to comment on all these different ideas of societal standards, standards as a performer, and practices in Western concert dance. So when I was trying to come up with a program note that would be succinct and show all that multifacetedness, I felt that the more I tried, the more I restricted it to one view. And so, leaving it up to the interpretation of everyone else — leaving it up to your own experience was important to me.
Another question from the audience asked about the collaborative nature of the dance department and how the choreographers are inspired by the people surrounding them. Nash responded:
I’m always grateful in class. I’m surrounded by really talented people. We are in an inspiring, supportive community, where we’re always pushing each other to be better artists, better dancers, better collaborators. Particularly with my dancers, I’m a bit intense in rehearsal, but they are always willing to meet me where I am. I think by the end of the choreographic process, they’re telling me the choreography better than I know it. It is very much a trust that I give to my dancers knowing that they’re committed to whatever we’ve created together. There are some of my closest friends, so I love knowing that I’m working with people that I thoroughly enjoy.
The final question of the talkback focused on the portrayal of emotion in the pieces, noting the visual differences between external versus internal expression of different emotions. McClung noted:
For me, I have these different characters and have tried to narrow one-on-one with them during rehearsals how their person was interacting with Elizabeth [Johnston ’28] and Donna Jo [Napoli, professor of linguistics and social justice], who you all saw sitting on the side [of the stage, playing the role of a fisherman]. Similar to [what Verdonk mentioned in regards to props], the emotion came from the beginning of the rehearsal process, and building the choreography around that was something that I wanted to focus on. For example, you saw Addie [Franklin ’27]’s solo with the bucket and water imagery reflecting sadness, which then felt different from the [happier] end of the piece. Lots of dance training out there has a very blank face, which can be hard to get over, but taking a step back from the steps, the counts, the choreography, and putting yourself in the emotional mindset or in the reason, asking why you’re doing these things, is important.
In addition to the work of these four seniors, the remaining senior dance majors and minors have presented their work in a variety of ways. The dance department offers two paths for majors and minors — a choreography focus, culminating in a senior project, and a dance studies focus, culminating in a senior thesis. This past fall, Gingerich-Boberg, a dance and French special major and environmental studies major, showcased their senior project, “OuDaPo,” and Arianna Mosqueda ’26, a dance and Latin American studies special major, wrote and presented her thesis, “Moving Power and Culture: Women’s Fútbol and Dabke Dance in Chile.”
Later this semester, Bonji Onuma ’26, an engineering major and dance minor, will be performing in the Dance Lab II Showcase on May 5, and Eve Necaise ’26, a dance studies and English major, will be presenting her thesis, “The Transmutation of Dance Programs and Programming: Early Modern to Present,” at the Dance Department Colloquium on May 6. If you are interested in seeing more performances like this one, the Spring Dance Concert will be held in LPAC’s Pearson-Hall Theater on May 1 and 2.
