91探花

From Oct. 14-19, the School of Dance facilitated a residency with professional artist Katherine Ferrier thanks to support from an 1804 Fund awarded to Associate Dance Professor Christi Camper Moore, PhD.

鈥淭he grant supports an artist coming in to work with everybody in the School of Dance鈥ut specifically they set a brand new work鈥or all of our first year dance majors, so it鈥檚 a huge community building opportunity,鈥� Camper Moore said. 

According to Camper Moore, this residency in the School of Dance engages students immediately upon their arrival and helps them create a 鈥渄ance identity as it鈥檚 formed through performance.鈥�

Ferrier is the fourth visiting artist to participate in this annual residency, an opportunity that comes with its own set of criteria.

鈥淚t has to be someone who understands and values community because that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e trying to build,鈥� Camper Moore said. 鈥�... it has to be someone who can work collaboratively; we鈥檙e not doing dance to our students; we鈥檙e doing it with them and so we want that creative lens. Then obviously they have to be really rooted in their practice.鈥�

Ferrier has been honing her craft and creating her own dance identity for over 30 years. In her weeklong residency, she imparted lessons from those years of work via improvisation and composition classes, workshops with students across various Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts departments and rehearsals for the aforementioned work.

鈥淭he through line of everything I鈥檓 offering is making sense by making and sensing,鈥� Ferrier said. 鈥淭he strategy is right in the phrase: how do you make sense when things feel chaotic, how do you make sense of an experience? By showing up as fully as you can to it, immersing yourself in it, making from it and sensing everything you can about it.鈥�

By the end of the week, Ferrier had created at least one point of contact with each School of Dance student, in addition to numerous connections with students in the School of Art + Design through her interdisciplinary artistic work.

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鈥淚f nothing else, I just want to offer something that鈥檚 going to serve students in whatever it is they鈥檙e doing, and that might just be 鈥榯rust yourself鈥� or 鈥榶ou鈥檙e never stuck,鈥� because there鈥檚 always some other way around,鈥� Ferrier said. 

Ferrier also hopes she provided students with the experience of being seen and acknowledged by a teacher in their field.

鈥淚 remember many moments like that through my education where I just felt seen by a teacher and what that meant to me,鈥� she said. 

Students will premiere the new dance work 鈥淏y the time you read this鈥� at the Winter Dance Concert in February. They will continue feeding their creative community in the coming months of rehearsals and growing the seeds of passion and development planted by Ferrier and supported by the School of Dance faculty.

鈥淭hey are in a creative community and will work together from now until February,鈥� Camper Moore said. 鈥淭hen they present and perform that creative research as a class, so that culminating experience reflects months of community building and really rooting into who they are here.

Building these relationships and a community of practice supports students' learning and engagement. This is critical to ensuring that our students feel a sense of belonging that is inclusive of their experience, voice, and relevancy in the field."