Tight Tin Pack
College of DuPage Spring Dance Concert
21 April 2017
McAninch Arts Center, Glen Ellyn, IL
All photos: Steve Jurkovic
Many thanks to the performers: Stephanie Byrne, Kennedy Hayes, Julius Mendiola, Renata Naomi, Katya Pospisil, Natalie Schultz, Elizabeth Cisneros Tlaxcala, Christina Weidner, and Owen Woodard
Tight Tin Pack looks at range of documented large-scale choreographic spectacles in order to consider how we read the movements of crowds and the ways in which meaning changes or persists when steps and gestures appear in new contexts, especially when choreography intended for hundreds or even thousands shrinks into a few dancing figures. The performers in Tight Tin Pack carry, dance among and perch atop wooden blocks, the sizes of which correspond precisely to the dancers' heights. This task sometimes limits the dancers’ movement potential and at other times enables usually impossible choreography. The blocks also aid the dancers in achieving a whimsical image of a crowd.