Southeast's Fall for Dance brings superhero energy, creativity

With “Pow!” “Zoom!” and “Whoosh!” flashing above, six dancing superheroines sprang into action Saturday night during Southeast Missouri State University’s Fall for Dance show.

The annual program featured choreography from Southeast faculty and students in a variety of styles and moods.

Hilary Peterson, Southeast professor and Fall for Dance’s artistic coordinator, said the show’s opening number was a nod to the university’s homecoming parade theme: superheroes.

“We wanted to incorporate a lot of strong imagery,” she said. “Lots of gesturing from the dancers, but it’s also supposed to be very humorous.”

Peterson choreographed the piece in 2011 but brought it back to fit this year’s show.

Dancers perform "The Spectacular Six" during Act I of the Fall for Dance performance Saturday at the River Campus at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.ANDREW J. WHITAKER

“And there’s a kitschy humor to all of that,” she said of superheroes and comic books. “And that’s a lot of what we love about them.”

The poses and costumes and voiceover about a Martian invasion included in the piece were clear homages to classic comics, complete with a curtain call of the six heroines saluting under a giant American flag.

But that was just one piece. The remaining seven plumbed different emotional depths.

One seemed to speak to strength, perseverance and isolation, as a single dancer moved in pink spotlight against a cold blue background.

The sparse, string instrumentation seemed to balance the up-tempo score of Peterson’s piece.

Dancers perform "The Spectacular Six" during Act I of the Fall for Dance performance Saturday at the River Campus at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.ANDREW J. WHITAKER

“We kind of came out as a little bit of a balance between rock ’n’ roll and classical music,” Peterson said. “But the whole show has a more modern, more contemporary sensibility to it.”

One piece blended the propulsion of house music with an angular, jazzy feel. Another blended three Jimi Hendrix numbers.

But the real energy came from the movement, Peterson said.

“Within all dance and with this concert in particular, there’s an atmosphere that the dancers have to create onstage,” she said. “In this concert, there are some duets which always lend themselves to putting relationships on display.”

The first duet piece in the show, titled “Burdened,” did that, wordlessly painting a visceral tension between the dancers. Male and female, red and blue, equal and opposite, they circled each other in an ill-fated struggle.

“More than other [shows] in the past, this one is all movement-driven,” Peterson said. “There’s a drive to show movement instead of having long narratives. It’s more immediate.”

Also featured was the choreography of famed choreographer Jose Limon, who died in 1972.

In preparation for the Limon piece, a suite from “A Choreographic Offering,” Peterson said a dancer from Limon’s company came and rehearsed with them for almost two weeks.

“The piece was created for one of [Limon’s] mentors,” Peterson said. “So it’s light. It’s joyful. It’s a really beautiful piece.”

Set to Bach’s “The Musical Offering,” it provided much of the classical influence to balance the show but never lost the dynamic sense of motion that carried it.

“This year, there’s a lot of high energy,” Peterson said.

Fall for Dance’s will be performed again at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Bedell Performance Hall at Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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