“Shadowed Embraces”

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The Department of Dance at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance presents Shadowed Embraces, with choreography by Robert Farr-Jones, Mary Kacsur, Stella Lansill, and Najah Tucker. This concert runs April 17th, 18th, & 19th at 7:30 pm.

Mary Kacsur’s group work, Light Encounters, utilizes three symbols–sunrise, sunset, and the North Star–to represent new beginnings, hope, direction, and the guidance that we seek in our lives. Dancers Eve Anderson, Ava Barber, Alexandra Baron, Julianne Doner, Lily Gonzalez, and Alyssa Hernandez take the audience on a reflective exploration through morning and night. In Kacsur’s solo, Love, Mary, she reflects on significant moments in her life, exploring themes of resilience, nostalgia, and healing. By sharing her personal journey, she highlights the importance of investing in moments that bring joy and truly matter.

Inspired by Jewish traditions, ancestral memory, and identity, Stella Lansill’s A fire must be tended to explores trauma, resilience, intimacy, and rebirth through movement, visual art, and live music. The connected group and solo piece confront youthful naivety with the ancient hymn hidden within us—burdened by past suffering and inherited trauma but gifted with the wisdom, strength, and creativity of those who came before, whose voices still hum within us. Through cycles of nurturing, explorations of queer relationships, and sacred reckoning, the performers undergo spiritual deaths and renewal, embracing “darkness” as a radical space for growth and collective healing.

Consuming, choreographed by Najah Tucker, explores how the weight of one singular want can cause a tidal wave of disaster. The work investigates this impending tidal wave of emotions through an ensemble of dancers. Before, Tucker’s solo, reminisces on past experiences that led her to where she is today.

Robert Farr-Jones’s work i’m not ready // they must be fed explores transformation, found family, and the inevitability of change, using the natural phenomenon of a whale fall as a guiding image. Through layered fabric veils developed in collaboration with a Design and Production major Ceri Roberts, this choreography navigates cycles of loss and renewal, inviting the audience to reflect on the profound transitions that shape our lives.

This concert is supported in part through the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, EXCEL Enterprise Fund and the Arts at Michigan Fund.