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The show will take place on November 12, 13 and 14 at Krannnert Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m.

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Address: 500 S. Goodwin Ave. Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-6700
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If you take a quick look at the latest Dance at Illinois concert posters, you might get the wrong idea about November Dance: SFX. Though the acronym SFX looks dirty at first glance, it actually stands for Student-Faculty eXchange.

November Dance: SFX highlights choreography by both students and faculty of Dance at Illinois; work by UIUC faculty Linda Lehovec and Cynthia Oliver and by guest artist Millicent Johnnie shares the program with work by graduate students Nick Duran, Sonia Warfel and Hope Goldman. The concert presents a range of dance styles. Hip-hop, tap and modern dance are predominant but also features influences from yoga, Capoeira and Latin dancing. “There is a full range of work in this show ... for someone who doesn’t know a lot about dance this would be a great introductory concert,” said Concert Director Kirstie Simson.

The show opens with an a cappella tap trio choreographed by Sonia Warfel that utilizes a segmented tap floor. The dancers travel on and off the boards, as well as leaping between them, and juxtapose unison tapping against offset syncopated rhythms. “We decided to intentionally go on and off the boards,” Warfel said. “They really changed the choreography and opened up a whole new set of complications, which in turn created a new set of possibilities and opportunities [in choreography].”

Warfel adapted the piece from a duet she performed with Jordan Shevell in last semester’s StudioDance II concert.

Lehovec’s piece “Together We,” joins the 12 graduating BFA candidates in a powerful meld of individual struggle and communal support. Set to the politically imbued music of the Flobots, the movement in the piece embodies a similar level of honesty and heady energy. “The more I listened, the more the words emerged and affected the direction of the movement,” explained Lehovec. “I wasn’t trying to be literal in my use of the music but I was trying to match the level of passion.”

In addition to its social politics, Lehovec recognizes that there is a strong emotional element to her piece. “I think some of it is in the music that has the lovely and unexpected strings, and some of it comes from the lovely group of individuals who come together as a community,” she said. The impending graduation of the dancers onstage puts them into a very strong yet vulnerable place that Lehovec sees mirrored in the dance.

Cynthia Oliver’s piece, a solo for UIUC Alumnus Nicholas Wagner entitled “Corpus Againstus,” presents vulnerability of a different kind — that associated with gender identity and sexual orientation. Oliver choreographed the piece for Wagner last year as his senior solo and found it to be a mutually rewarding experience. The solo explores the notion that people constantly negotiate their private selves and their public personas, regardless of sexual orientation. “It is a rehearsed dance, an ongoing performance,” Oliver said of the negotiation. “And to think otherwise, we are fooling ourselves.”

An excerpt from “Hip-Hop Project: Insight into a Hip-Hop Generation” will showcase both UIUC dance majors and dancers from outside the department in a variety of regional styles and flavors of hip-hop dance. In the show, the dancers were challenged to uphold the integrity of affects from the Midwest, the East Coast and the “Dirty South,” among others, and many found it difficult to acquire a sense of authenticity.

“As an American it was challenging to give myself up to the new cultures Millicent [Johnnie] introduced,” said dancer Katherine Roarty. “I think that has been the scariest part of the rehearsal process.” Johnnie said that it took about five days of rehearsal to peel away the dancers’ preconceived notions of what hip-hop should look like. “What you learn in the studio is different than what you learn on the street,” she added. “We had to teach them not to just imitate me but rather to have a truly authentic experience of the movement.”

The experiential authenticity of movement permeates throughout November Dance: SFX. “I think this is a very ‘physical’ or ‘felt’ show,” said Lehovec. “It’s more about being in the room with the bodies moving and what that does to you rather than being confronted with a lot of ideas or questions.”  

When attending the concert, follow Lehovec’s advice: Allow yourself to be swept up in the physicality, the energy and the magic that each piece creates. Do not hold yourself back trying to figure out “what it all means.”