Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Dancing on the Sun

Middlebury College’s Advanced Choreography class is stepping into the spotlight this week — in more ways than one. Charged with the ambitious semester-long project of creating, casting and performing their own pieces, the dancers in this upper-level course also designed the lighting for their peers’ work. Lighting designer and technical director Jennifer Ponder explains that, after graduation, dancers are “often without a design collaborator,” so they need to know how to produce their own performances. Six Midd students unveil their “contemporary vernacular” styles, polished with the guidance of INSPIRIT dance troupe founder Christal Brown. “The interesting thing to see,” Ponder says, “is how each piece can look different from each other, even though they’re working from the same equipment.”