Student choreography sparks compelling collaboration in Hamilton Gallery

A special collaboration will occur Feb. 20 when students enrolled in the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance’s DNC400: Choreography course will perform a dance piece inspired by the exhibition “Stronger and Weaker, More and Less” currently featured in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery. Jodie Goodnough, assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History, produced the exhibition with personal photography she produced over a 10-year span while contemplating her father’s death and the ways it changed her life forever.

“They were visually moved,” said Lindsay Guarino, associate professor in the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance, as she noted the response her students had when they visited the exhibit initially. “One of my students was sobbing the whole time they were in there. [Goodnough’s] work is really powerful.”

Guarino had her students choreograph responses to the Senior Honors Thesis Exhibition in 2019, and both Goodnough and Guarino were looking for more ways to collaborate in the future. “I thought [it] was just an amazing idea,” Goodnough said. “When I was planning this [exhibit], it just made sense to both of us.”

The site-specific work will be performed in the Hamilton Gallery surrounded by Goodnough’s photographs, offering a multiplicity of perspectives on her work through choreography produced by each student currently enrolled in the course. The performance will last about 15 minutes.

“People aren’t just going and sitting in really formal theaters to experience dance,” said Guarino of performing in the gallery space. “What can you create that’s different, out of the box and … sparks a different level of outreach and interest for audience members?”

Morgan George ’22 (middle) enjoyed creating her own choreography to Goodnough’s photography.

Morgan George ’22, a student in the choreography course who will participate in the piece, is majoring in nursing and minoring in dance. She has enjoyed the opportunities the dance program at Salve Regina has provided, as well as the chance to try her choreography skills in such a unique setting.

“My first thought was, ‘How can I come up with an idea based off of a picture?'” George said. “Just being in the dance program, it’s almost like all art gives me an aesthetic response now, and when I went into that room just going around to every single picture, I had so much to say about it.”

Both Goodnough and Guarino hope to continue collaborating in the future, and Goodnough hopes that collaborations like this will inspire other academic programs to imagine even more creative ways to cross fields of study. “There’s nothing better for creativity, honestly,” Goodnough said. “I think the more we can connect different areas of study, the richer an experience we can give our students.”