Plenty of people are shy dancing in front of others, but dancing in front of strangers, in broad daylight on a city street, is an entirely new concept.
But more than a dozen GW dancers did just that this weekend, taking their art to the streets as part of the 17th annual Arts on Foot Festival, held in downtown D.C. Saturday. The students, who are studying in professor Maida Withers’ modern dance classes, did not formally prepare any choreography for the event. Instead, they improvised and, as they danced their way for two blocks along Seventh Street, they involved members of the crowd in their act.
“It’s very much like play,” Withers said. “The event allowed students, in a very clever and human way, to interact with the people who live there and the people who are there for the festival.”
Pedestrians showed everything from delight to disgust upon encountering the dancers on the sidewalk. Ben Wagner, a sophomore, said the performance made him “uncomfortable.” But freshman Cody Lee ended up dancing along with the group, even though he originally planned to attend the event only as a spectator.
“I found that it was more awkward for me to watch than participate myself, so I kind of felt like I should bring my ideas as well to the dance floor,” Lee said.
That kind of spontaneous participation was just what Withers had hoped would happen.
“The young people are so creative,” she said. “They’re daring. They just love adventure.”
Dancer Ashley Nitzen, a senior, said that watching the audience’s response was one of the highlights of the performance.
“It’s such a fun experience to see other people’s reactions… whether or not they get scared and walk away, or whether they just sit and watch, or whether they laugh and do it with you,” she said.
The group used everything from light posts and crosswalks to people as props and characters in their spontaneous urban theater. Michael Kim, a sophomore, was surprised at how the event unfolded.
“[Maida] kind of had us come in without knowing what it was exactly,” he said. “We went around all the streets, just doing random stuff. It was really cool, because we would all come together at random points to do certain structures or certain movements collectively. A lot of it was without words too.”
The students, Withers said, study artists who are “open and innovative in an off-the-wall way.” She encouraged her class to emulate their improvisational spirit during the street performance.
Jo-Ann Neuhaus, a GW alumnus and the coordinator of the festival, said she thought the event went “smashingly well,” and gathered a larger crowd than in past years. This is the third year that GW dancers have performed for the festival.
“I always think that a festival like this is a great opportunity to expose people to the arts, and anything that does that is wonderful,” she said.
