Eight young choreographers, six of them products of the Wichita State dance program, presented bits of themselves in spotlighted motion in front of 60 audience members last Saturday evening. Their dances initiated conversations, to which each audience member assigned our own unique meanings.

This second “Super Fresh: An Emerging Artists’ Showcase,” a production of Smack Dab Dance Lab, took place at Harvester Arts, 120 E. 1st St. in downtown Wichita, on a temporary dance floor that made a stage large enough for solos (we saw six), duets (one) and a finale with seven dancers. Free-standing lights on two corners produced shades of color that added texture to the dancers and reflected off the white curtained backdrop.

Recalling the fragments of these conversations encased in movement, I was entranced by the complex, mixed emotions of “PLD,” choreographed by Piper Patterson and danced by Patterson and Liberty Joy, to the innocently sinister music of Cornelius’ “Typewrite Lesson.” Patterson collects “weird music” that demands choreography, but she didn’t offer to explain the meaning of “Typewrite Lesson.” 

In the dancers’ precision and synchronization, I saw an embodiment of the polite control heard in the music’s rhythmic teacher voice dictating letters of the alphabet. The dancers dressed identically, their expressions blank, unemotional. I saw a commentary on how artificial intelligence “persons” interact with mere mortals. The warning is that no human lives inside this disembodied voice.

“PLD” actually stands for Piper, Liberty, and dance. These two young dancers initiated the first “Super Fresh” showcase, held August 24, 2024. Both Patterson and Joy graduated from WSU with dance degrees in May 2024 after dancing together for four years and becoming best friends in the process.

Patterson loves to turn the question, “What is your dance about?” back to the questioner, she told me after the show. “When they tell me the story they made up in their head, I say, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’” 

In “the product is not the prayer,” written and danced by Caitlyn Fox, conflicting forces tug on the dancer, who is caught between stage left and stage right. “This is me,” says her lack of costume —  a baggy T-shirt, unkempt hair, and mismatched socks —  “I’m going two directions!”

I later learned that Fox is feeling regret over her upcoming departure from Kansas. (The second part of her soundtrack, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” made the point.) Yet she is eagerly anticipating her new job as special events coordinator for Santa Fe Playhouse in New Mexico.

She named her dance “the product is not the prayer” after a coaching statement by Mina Estrada during an August 23 dance and prayer workshop titled “Moving to Remember.” Estrada’s intention was to relax participants as they improvised movement. 

“To me it said I don’t need to be anything but myself. I can embrace the excitement of change along with hesitance. Both feelings can exist at once,” Fox said.

Sabrina Vasquez, professor of dance at WSU, told me that dance holds “the risk of expressing our authentic selves.” She was one of several faculty members who attended the show to watch their former students. “Their work has risen to the next level, “ she said. “My heart was so full to see them continuing to make art.”

Dance fans know the risk a dance artist takes in placing their body on view to express themselves. “Super Fresh” revealed their emotions: Sara Goldberg’s fascination with the American toad, Gabi Johnson’s unlikely acrobatic interlude between Zoom calls, Madelyn Zaring’s and Claire Gray’s sheer exuberance, and Lille Nightingale’s dramatic contrasts in mood. The audience cheered, whooped and whistled after each dance.

Our city will become more joyful, honest, and connected every time we give a stage to dancers and take our seats in the audience. The risky conversation must continue.

Jan Swartzendruber began dancing after she left her hometown of Hesston, Kansas, for the East Coast in 1973, where lessons in modern, jazz, tap, folk, and ballroom dance were easy to find. In Botswana, Africa, and Fairfax, Virginia, she taught a blend of dance forms to adult beginners before taking "serious" jobs in journalism, design, and public school teaching. She previously served on the board of the Regina Klenjoski Dance Company.

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