Seniors showcase arts in final production

Ricki Quinn was sitting in a park in Barcelona when a woman walking her chihuahua caught her eye.

“She threw her arms up and yelled ‘Siéntate’ at her dog,” Quinn said. “I was astonished. Here, we would just point your finger and say ‘sit’.”

The experience inspired Quinn, a fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance student, to change the direction of her senior project proposal to marry the concepts of movement and experience.

Quinn is one of 10 seniors presenting a project in Saturday’s showcase entitled “footage: The 2014 Senior Project Showcase,” the final production of the two-quarter-long World Arts and Cultures 186 course, featuring performances with dance, film, spoken word and multimedia combinations in eight-minute pieces.

“It showcases all types of artists and creators,” Quinn said. “(The projects) are a culmination of what we’ve learned.”

Quinn and her classmates applied for the 10 spots in the course during fall quarter of their senior year after developing project proposals during their junior year with faculty members and other mentors. Upon acceptance to the program, the students worked together to make the showcase a reality.

“Winter quarter was about creating our work. … We would have showings and give each other feedback to help create our vision,” said Erica Angarano, fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance student. “Spring quarter has really been about production and how to … get the work on stage.”

Quinn’s performance, titled “7/21/13” after her journal entry from her travels, is a duet with third-year world arts and cultures/dance student Amanda Sanchez, a Miami native. Just as the woman in Barcelona used movements that carried her culture, Quinn and Sanchez’s movements echo their contrasting backgrounds, Quinn said.

“(Sanchez) has big movements, the ‘kiss-kiss’ when you meet someone,” said Quinn. “I was born and raised in the L.A. area and have much more reserved movements like the handshake.”

Quinn said the show is really just two people from two different hometowns coming together, and their movements and history colliding.

Angarano, on the other hand, said she was inspired by technology-mediated communication in long-distance relationships. A New York native, she often relies on technology to keep in touch with her family.

Angarano worked closely with the stage manager and lighting designer to incorporate cellophane, a physical metaphor for technology, into her performance.

She said the cellophane helps visualize the role of technology in relationships and communication throughout her piece.

“The piece starts with very little cellophane on stage,” Angarano said. “Then there is growth and accumulation integrated into the partner work and staging, demonstrating our overdependance on technology.”

Angarano said she conveys her own experience and reliance on technology and communication through her performance by showing the warm and cold sides of technology.

“(Technology) is an inadequate substitute for interpersonal communication,” Angarano said. “Looking back at my piece, I was interested in how it can be so good and so bad at the same time.”

Olivia Schafer’s senior project is a sequel to her piece, “The Warning,” from WACsmash’D in February. This piece, titled “The Invasion, edited,” presents two different perspectives of dance by incorporating both film footage and live performance in her choreography. She juxtaposes them to highlight the disparity between technologically manipulated commercial dance on screen and concert dance on stage, she said.

Schafer said that dance is moving in a multimedia direction, which she hopes to bring to her performance to provide a more exciting and stimulating experience.

“My ultimate goal as an artist is to make dance that appeals to a mass audience the way that film does,” said Schafer, fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance student.

Consistent with her February performance, she and her dancers take on an alien character once more, this time costumed in eye-catching electric blue leggings.

“I’m interested in shapes and spatial relationships,” Schafer said. “I see images, not necessarily fluid movements, but how something moves from one way in space to (another).”

She said her conception of aliens helps represent this movement.

Angarano said that despite how all the students study in the same place, their works are distinct and reflect different styles and mediums of choreography.

“I hope my work inspires the audience to reflect back on how they use technology to maintain relationships or isolate themselves from relationships,” Angarano said.

Quinn said she thinks that her piece transcends traditional dance styles, describing it as inspired by postmodern and contemporary dance.

“I like to call it ‘movement,'” she said. “I call myself a ‘mover.’ … Coming back to the States after my travels, I’ve noticed my movement change.”

In July, a year from that fateful day in Barcelona, Quinn will return to Spain to teach English while pursuing dance at a local dance company, where she will bring with her what she has learned at UCLA. She said the world arts and cultures/dance department has widened her perspective on what art can do beyond the aesthetic and sees the showcase as a way for artists to communicate deep topics.

“I hope that (the showcase) will engage the audience in a way that makes them think past the art,” Quinn said. “I hope that it will challenge them to think about substantial topics and show them that art can cross so many boundaries. It’s powerful.”