Student dance choreography sparks compelling collaboration in Hamilton Gallery

A special dance collaboration will occur on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 5 p.m. when students enrolled in the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance’s DNC400 Choreography class will perform a dance piece inspired by the exhibit “Stronger and Weaker, More and Less” currently featured in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery. Faculty, students, staff and the public are all invited to attend.

Jodie Goodnough, assistant professor of photography, produced the exhibit “Stronger and Weaker, More and Less” with personal photography she’d produced over a 10-year span while contemplating her father’s death and the ways it changed her life forever.

Students practice their choreography for the upcoming performance on Feb 20 at 5.pm.

“They were visually moved,” described Lindsay Guarino, associate professor of dance, as she noted the response her students had when they went to 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 described. “When I was planning this [exhibit], it just made sense to both of us.”

This site-specific work will be danced within the Hamilton Gallery surrounded by Goodnough’s photographs—offering a multiplicity of perspectives on Goodnough’s work through choreography produced by each student currently enrolled in the DNC400 Choreography class. 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. “So it’s like… what can you create that’s different, out of the box and … sparks just a different level of outreach and interest for audience members?”

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

Morgan George ’22, one of Guarino’s students in the choreography class who will be participating in the piece on Feb. 20, is majoring in nursing and minoring in dance. George has enjoyed the opportunities the dance program at Salve Regina has given her so far, as well as the chance to try her choreography skills in such a unique setting.

“My first thought was like, ‘How can I come up with an idea based off of a picture?’ ” George admitted. “But … 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 … 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 departments to imagine even more creative ways to cross fields of study.

“There’s nothing better for creativity, honestly,” said Goodnough. “I think the more we can connect different areas of study, the richer an experience we can give our students.”