The undergraduate dance group A Different Drum plans to fuse outer space and dance in their performance this weekend.
ADD’s theme for this semester’s performance considers the ways space influences pop culture. The show will feature a total of 14 dances, as well as a finale including all 21 members of the company. It will also include shorter, comedic skits that discuss popular themes from outer space, such as constellations, the solar system, astrology and iconic space movies.
Varsha Midha ’19, one of the artistic directors of ADD, played a significant role in deciding the theme for this performance.
“The infinity of possibilities … Go where no one has gone before — [a] final frontier type of idea. [This is] also something that applies to dance,” Midha said. “No one person moves the same way. There’s an infinitude of movements … There’s so much potential in dance. There’s so much potential in space.”
The show’s finale, “Orbiting Bodies,” connects the dancers’ movements to the cosmos. That connection means entanglement, weight-sharing and reciprocity among the dancers, bringing out the idea that individuality can emerge from the building blocks of something much larger.
“We find ways to take the audience on a journey,” said Kaya Duguay ’19, president of ADD. “[This is an] experience that is familiar but also can take you out of your typical bounds.”
ADD will present the intersection between not only dance and science but also visual arts and everyday movement. According to Duguay, viewers can expect a diversity of narratives, styles and choreography.
ADD works to provide a place where dancers from all backgrounds can join each other to broaden their technical and artistic abilities as both dancers and choreographers. Dancers in ADD draw on their knowledge from ballet, Chinese and Indian classical dances and even martial arts to develop their choreography.
“It’s an incredible show. One of the things I think is so unique and incredible about ADD is there’s such intellectual diversity,” Midha said. “We have people from all disciplines … and they all come together with these disparate dance experiences, academic experiences, life experiences. They have this goal of really exploring and critically engaging with dance, and you see that in the show.”
ADD will showcase a range of dances musically and artistically inspired by both historical and contemporary styles. Luna Beller-Tadiar ’18, a dancer and choreographer for ADD, emphasized this intersection of styles.
“It’s a vibrant, creative space where people are really thinking through dance as an art form that is malleable, and various choreographers are doing very different things,” Beller-Tadiar said.
This semester, ADD worked with outside dancers once a week in professionally taught workshops to shape their choreography for the show.
“You can safely say that a show you see with ADD is not going to be like any other show on campus,” Midha said. “It’s a very unique space — an artistic space — and it’s something that [because] there’s such an intellectual and artistic diversity in our group, it really comes through in our show … You really get to not just see it, but also experience it.”
ADD’s first show will take place on Friday at 8 p.m. in the Stiles-Morse Crescent Underground Theater, followed by two additional shows on Saturday.
Grace Kang | grace.kang@yale.edu
Correction, Nov. 3: A previous version of this article said that ADD’s first show will take place on Saturday at 7 p.m. In fact, it will take place on Friday at 8 p.m.