“Small Dance Party” – MFA Thesis Dance Concert by Kei Tsuruharatani

The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance presents Small Dance Party by Master of Fine Arts in Dance candidate Kei Tsuruharatani. This event is an immersive performance installation that shifts the focus of dance from exterior virtuosity to interior listening. An improvisational score will be performed at 6:45 pm and 7:45 pm. Guests are invited to come and go whenever during those two hours.

Small Dance Party investigates the intersection of trans/queer studies and dance studies by centering softness, attunement, and the ordinary as radical sites of inquiry. While acknowledging the highly virtuosic performances often found in queer communities, this project offers an alternative: a queer dance space that values quiet listening to the body and the environment. By framing dance as an art of attention in space and time, the installation turns toward the mundane movements of everyday life. Outside the bounds of traditional entertainment, dance becomes a critical, living lens to examine transness – revealing the internal movement that happens while transitioning.

During the event, with music composition by Molly Jones, participants and observers are invited into a shared meditative space. The installation asks attendees to yield control: rather than commanding the body, participants are invited to listen to what the body has to say. By engaging with the rhythm of the internal body, the sway of gravity, and the expansion of breath, Small Dance Party creates a deeply somatic environment for queering body, movement, and stillness.

This project is being held in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts in Dance degree requirements. It was made possible by support from the Department of Dance, William Braddan McClellan, Jr. Fund in Dance, Excel Lab & Career Center, SMTD Wellness Program, Eisenberg Family Depression Center, and the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.