Stress and rebounding from crisis inspired “Resilience,” the seventh annual performance by the Contemporary Dance Ensemble at Fresno State.

The show opened on Feb. 17 and featured students from Dance 163, a course in which the dancers rehearse and ultimately perform for audiences on tour. Students are admitted to the course by audition only.

There are six performances, each created by a different choreographer. Some were created by the artistic director and Fresno State professor Kenneth Balint while others were done by choreographers from out of town.

“We had a lot of residencies where we had to train three days straight for eight hours every day,” said Nathalie Quiros, one of the dancers and an incoming Fresno State student.

Each performance evoked a different mood, which was done through music, costuming and movements of the dancers.

“I really liked how there was a wide variety of types of dances,” said Jenna Scordino, a third-year theater major. “Like they weren’t all the same dance over and over.”

“Genesis, Exodus, Evolution,” choreographed by Janelle Paris, began with sounds of a jungle and the dancers emerging in the seats behind the audience. Slowly, they moved onto the stage and danced to bass-heavy electronic music.

Unlike the other performances, like one which featured an excerpt of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech or another with orchestral music, “Genesis, Exodus, Evolution” had the students dancing to pop music in a more hip-hop style.

Another performance, “Empty Spaces,” was choreographed by Rogelio Lopez, a faculty member at Saint Mary’s College. In this routine, dancers used self-held lights which were shined onto the other performing dancers and traded among one another. Besides those lights, the room was in complete darkness.

The diversity in the performances was a quality that the audience appreciated. For many students, this performance was their first time watching a dance ensemble.

“It’s unique in its own ways,” said Cha Yang, a second-year theater major. “Every dance, every movement has its own meaning. But there’s no line, no dialogue for you to decipher that meaning; this is more abstract.”
The ensemble will travel later this spring to the 2017 American College Dance Association’s conference in Modesto to perform two of the routines. “Resiliance” runs through Feb. 25  at 7 p.m. in the John Wright Theater.