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Abstract :

Staged by Ballet artist and instructor, Debra Mercer, Huapango, choreographed in 1965 by 
Enrique Martinez.  Huapango is a Mexican dance, composed by Juan Pablo Moncayo.
Tickets are available at the Worner Student Center or at the door. Free with a CC I.D. $5 
general public.

Theatre and Dance at 719-389-6637 or Squinn@coloradocollege.edu

Full Message :

Mobilities
Colorado College’s annual dance performance


Colorado College’s Department of Theatre and Dance presents Mobilities, our 2017 mainstage dance 
performance, March 9-11, at 7:30 pm in the Kathryn Mohrman Theatre. 

The program is comprised of six works that span dance and music traditions from Senegal to Cuba and 
innovations in dance that reflect on questions of visual focus, the physics of organic movement processes, 
consumerism and the relationship of mobility to brain injury.  

Mobilities brings together six choreographers, over twenty student dancers, two guest dancers and five 
drummers. Three guest choreographers, Parijat Desai, Dallo Fall and Laura Hymers Treglia, join Colorado 
College dance faculty members/choreographers Patrizia Herminjard, Debra Mercer and Shawn Womack. 

MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Optic, a collaboratively devised dance by Patrizia Herminjard and Laura Treglia Hymers, was conceived by 
the desire to understand and explore the notion
of focus from a performer and observer’s point of view.

Ballet artist and instructor, Debra Mercer, staged Huapango, choreographed in 1965 by Enrique Martinez. 
Originally from Cuba, Mr. Martinez emigrated to the United States, became a U.S. citizen and went on to 
become ballet master at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and the director of the Denver Civic Ballet.  
Huapango is a Mexican dance and the music, composed by Juan Pablo Moncayo is one of the most beloved 
pieces in Mexico; often played as the finale at symphonic concerts. Guest dancer, Peter Strand, joins the 
student cast. Mr. Strand has danced with the Oakland ballet, the Minnesota Ballet and Les Ballet Trocadero 
de Monte Carlo among others.

In an age of ever-increasing mass production and consumerism, ongoing abundance of enormous 
quantities of goods has become a standard of our culture. Millions & Millions, created by Patrizia 
Herminjard for ten student dancers, serves as a metaphor for our insatiable consumer appetite and the 
cyclical nature of throwaway culture.
 
 Never Not Falling, choreographed by Shawn Womack with seven students, grew out of a series of 
workshops at BrainCare, an organization that provides daily support
for individuals with acquired or traumatic brain injury. Ten workshops were conducted at BrainCare that 
paired CC dancers with Braincare participants to move together and to converse with one another around 
topics of mutual concern, such as care giving and receiving, care management, loss, limitations and self-
determination. This dance isn’t a scientific examination of mobility and the brain, nor do the dancers—who 
include, Paul Ashby, a workshop participant from BrainCare—represent people with acquired or traumatic 
brain injuries. The dance attempts to build an empathetic connection with them by exploring physically 
demanding situations analogous to experiences resulting from brain injuries.

Guest choreographer Parijat Desai created Charged, an original work for seven student dancers. Ms. Desai is 
a contemporary choreographer that fuses vocabularies from her background in Bharata Natyam dance, a 
classical Indian dance form, with Western contemporary dance practices. The choreographic processes for 
Charged are informed by organic movement at the sub-atomic level.

Closing the program is Jamoral, a West African drum and dance performance directed by Dallo Fall, a 
Colorado Springs dancer and drummer from Senegal. Ms. Fall and the student dancers are joined by five 
drummers from the Springs community. Jamoral means “listening to each other” and is at the heart of the 
relationship between the dancers and the drummers and between the audience and the performers. The 
dance is traditionally practiced by the Diola people; the ethnicity and culture that Dallo Fall is rooted in.

Tickets are available at the Worner Student Center or at the door. Free with a CC I.D., $5 for the general 
public.

For more information call the Theatre and Dance Department at 719-389-6637 or email
Squinn@coloradocollege.edu.