Video of dancers wearing white, yellow and black costumes on a stage with lights and haze.
In summer 2023, through generous support from the office of the vice provost for the arts, Department of Dance Chair Charles O. Anderson launched the new pilot incubator program H.A.T.CH. (HOLISTIC APPROACHES to TRANSFORMATIVE CHOREOGRAPHY) which provides a space to consider choreography as not only as product, but a process to understand our world. Last July, Chair Anderson engaged a group of 13 dancers to conduct research for his new commission with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) and in August, new Assistant Professors Irvin Manuel Gonzalez and Alfonso Cervera were in residency. The initiative was featured in the Ohio State’s Alumni Magazine in September 2023.
The department’s main stage H.A.T.CH. Spring Concert, April 11-13, 2024, invigorated audiences with a robust, vibrant and vigorous display of recently ripened works conceived and created by world-renowned faculty choreographers Anderson, Alfonso Cervera, Irvin Manuel Gonzalez, Nyama McCarthy-Brown, Crystal Michelle Perkins, Abby Zbikowski, Post MFA Scholar Ryan Johnson and featuring critically acclaimed choreographer Sidra Bell, founder of Sidra Bell Dance New York. The concert showcased performances by our talented BFA and MFA students. For Anderson's piece, we welcomed back the amazing dancers of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the oldest Black dance company in Ohio, one of the premiere dance companies in the country holding works of some of the most innovative and influential choreographers of the 20th and 21st century and Ohio State Dance's professional company in residence.
Thanks to renewed support from the office of the vice provost for the arts Ohio State Dance looks forward to the inaugural launch of Summer H.A.T.CH. with Sidra Bell and DCDC in residence July 5-13, 2024. Department Chair Charles O. Anderson said, “The Ohio State University Department of Dance is striving to be a premiere hub of innovative contemporary and experimental dance invested in liberatory transformation within a city and state with profound resources in support of the arts. To that end, we are developing a new curricular model that couples academic course offerings with multiweek summer intensive training during summer sessions 1, 2 and 3 that could allow an undergraduate to complete a BFA in three years and two summers and MFA candidates to complete their program in two years and one to two summers. Ohio State Dance consistently ranks as one of the top dance departments in the country and holds a longstanding reputation as a leader in the field. Many university dance programs are considered “The Best” in published rankings but few of these published rankings address the question: ‘The best for whom?’ Conservatory programs—which tend to claim the top spots on any ranking for university dance programs—may not have other options for students who want to transition into or combine other tracks, like arts administration, scholarship, design, technology and film or education. There are still distinct differences between conservatory programs that may not be reflected in rankings. And most relevant to our current departmental mission and vision- most of these programs do not centralize critical pedagogical approaches in service to liberatory praxis to inform their curricula and performance programming wholistically. We wish to self-determine what it means to be great or ‘the best’ within a 21st century context. Over the past six years the department has made an intentional effort to diversify and decolonize our engagement with ‘technique,’ what it means to prepare our students professionally, and the ways we approach interdisciplinarity. We have been thinking about why and how we achieve this ranking based on the aforementioned criteria in an effort to reflect the pluralistic aesthetics of the dance industry and related fields of dance studies and education. H.A.T.CH. is our strategy to not only distinguish ourselves as a department of dance, but also draw attention to the rich arts programing and support here in Columbus and in Ohio.”
To help our students to be able to take advantage of H.A.T.CH. and all of our new summer programming, scholarship support will be crucial. Additionally, in order to garner the caliber of artists we are recruiting to be resident choreographers for H.A.T.CH. we will need considerable funding to support their residency beyond the support we are receiving from the vice provost’s office.
Photos by John Landry, Top5ive Photography; Spring 2024 HATCH Concert
- “actually breathing," by Sidra Bell
- “las cosas que enter(r)amos” (“the things we bury”), by Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez
- "Churning the Ocean," by Abby Zbikowski with contributions by Benjamin Roach and dancers
- "American Mixtape (42)," by Crystal Michelle Perkins
- "A 3/5 Proclamation: 8.5.23," by Charles O. Anderson
- "Sawubona 2.0," by Ryan K. Johnson
- "Five Pillars," by Nyama McCarthy-Brown
Promo reel by Lexi Clark-Stilianos
