Sergio Sierra Brings Embodied Performance Techniques from Manizales, Colombia

Seven students walk across the dance floor and take up positions; a live drummer starts playing, setting a tempo to follow and the performers begin moving around the space, changing direction, tempo, gait, and height at the direction of a voice from offstage. For the next 60 minutes, attendees of the Dramaturgy Living in Motion workshop watched as the performers--four dance students and three graduate acting students--moved through an engrossing series of exercises, evoking nostalgia, sadness, hope, love, joy, and more. Led by Sergio Sierra, scholar and professor from Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Colombia, the students shared the culmination of intense exploration of expression, movement, and creation with an audience of approximately 50 Purdue University faculty, staff, and students.

The performance and lecture, presented on Saturday, September 21 at 4:00 pm in the Dance Studio Theatre in Yue-Kong Pao Hall, was the culmination of a two-week workshop in which students worked collaboratively with each other and Sierra to create original movement using the methods of constructing scores by Eugenio Barba, a focus of Sierra's research into performance, expression, and embodiment. Using Chinese Ideograms and personal photos as inspiration, each performer developed unique movement sequences that combined elegant explorations of shape, speed, and movement with everyday poses like singing into a microphone, standing with a loved one, or posing for a tourist photo.

According to Sierra, "this workshop has been the most advanced development point of the research I have been doing in recent years...we were fortunate to have one group of students who belong to dance and another to theater, as well as students with heritages from cultures such as Chinese, Indian, and Mexican who brought to the workshop their expressiveness and forms of movement that strengthened the encounter between cultures.  These two group characteristics actualize Barba's postulates on interculturality and the dialogue between scenic disciplines."

The process of embodiment that Sierra shared with Purdue students was different than they had experienced before. "As a dancer, I particularly enjoyed using my personal experiences to inspire my movement," says Ally Simon, one of the student participants in the workshop. "I often find myself focused on the steps of the dance, so learning about embodying movement and making it my own was a welcome challenge."

Sierra collaborated with Renee Murray, Senior Lecturer in Dance, to work with the students and to create a presentation that incorporated video elements. "I had the pleasure of collaborating with Sergio on this workshop and was so inspired by his research and engagement with our students," says Murrray. "He was excited by their creativity, responding in the moment with new ideas and connections, and consistently open to the feedback and suggestions of all in the room. Our students participated with focus, curiosity, and appreciation for each other’s contributions. It was wonderful to experience this collaboration of our Dance and Theatre programs."

This movement research experience offered students new methods for crafting performances, emphasized the physicality of the body, and created an opportunity to connect expression with movement. The presentation also explored how real-time video projection can change the spectators' experience of a live performance and featured original sound by dance accompanist Colin Dees. The projection was designed by Senior Lecturer Renee Murray. The performers were Izzy Hendrickson, Cecelia Jaskel, Katy Luna, Sophia Paulino Adames, Negha Sethuramalingam, Ally Simon & Zhong Wang.