Showcasing a wealth of student talent and ability in the performance arts, Brandeis Theater Company's latest production, Movement Project: Heaven and Hell/Light and Dark, featured a variety of exceptional performances. The Movement Project was performed in the Spingold Theater Center's Laurie Theater during Saturday and Sunday, March 9 and 10. Directed by Prof. Susan Dibble (THA), the project consisted of 12 dance pieces that were choreographed and performed by both members of Brandeis' undergraduate students and the Masters of Fine Arts students.

Each piece was inspired by an image that represented opposites, and sought to tell the story behind that image. The production's program discussed the show's inspiration in greater depth: "Each choreographer chose a painting that offers images of light and dark, heaven and hell, or other opposing themes. What we see in a work of art can spark and direct our imagination in many different ways. And these choreographic offerings can be viewed as moving paintings or visual narratives inspired by the chosen artists' work." The images that served as inspiration ranged from classic works by painter Pablo Picasso to the personal drawings of the MFA class, and the music that accompanied each piece ranged from an Alanis Morisette ballad to a resonant Chopin work. 

Each piece expressed a chilling range of emotions and told the sort of story one would imagine as the background for each respective image. A personal favorite, and, in my opinion, one of the stronger pieces, was the performance that opened up the show. Called "Decisions and Revisions Which a Minute Will Reverse," the piece was choreographed by MFA student Sarah Bedard and inspired by Picasso's painting "Mother and Child." The painting shows a radiant mother holding her small child on her lap, looking lovingly at the child, who seems to be just tiring from a fuss.

Bedard performed in this piece as the child herself, and even brought her own mother into the piece, having her play the mother from the painting. Four other female dancers, Aya Abdelaziz '16, Stephanie Ramos '14, Meg Evans '12 and Sara Schoch, Masters of Fine Arts students, as well as Eddie Shields acted out the story that Bedard imagined behind the painting. The choreography showed a passionate progression of emotions as the child grew away from her mother, fell deeply in love with a man, was taunted by the other girls, pushed away by her lover, who left the stage with one of the other dancers by the end of the piece and finally the child returned to her mother. The thoughtfully coordinated and emotionally aware movements of the dancers in this piece were striking, and made quite an impression as the show began.

Not every piece was serious, however; the dynamic depictions of heaven and hell ranged from frightening to blissful to hilarious. "On A Break," choreographed by MFA student Alex Jacobs showed the lighter side of the artists' contemplation of the theme of opposites. Jacobs' piece was inspired by the image "Smoking Angels" by artist Lynn Curlee, which shows three ivory-swathed angels sitting together and smoking cigarettes-and was used as album artwork for Black Sabbath's 1980 album Heaven and Hell.

The performance featured Jade Garisch '15 dressed as a wedding-dress-white angel, halo headband and all, taunting Ben Lewin '16, who wore hellish head-to-toe cherry red and matching red horns. By the end of the piece, Garisch had given a cigarette to Lewin, finished smoking her own, beaten him at strip poker and ran off stage, leaving him in a bright red undershirt and shorts. The piece communicated the theme of contrast, but did so with a level of hilarity that found the audience laughing throughout.

The variety within this conglomeration of pieces provided an opportunity for an impressive number of dance parts in a way that many other slower-paced shows cannot. The premise of the show provoked the choreographers and dancers to dig deep into their artistic schemas to pull off their performances with a level of emotion that kept the audience interested for the entire hour-long show. I hope to see more performances like the Movement Project at Brandeis in the future.