Tackling personal and emotional situations through dance has become a way to understand difficult issues for modern dance junior Manuel Valdes.
“My choreographic process comes from more personal things, so I really tend to stick to emotional struggles I’ve had in the past or situations, so this year I decided to tackle one of the things that hits close to home for me, which is depression,” Valdes said.
This year, Valdes is choreographing a piece entitled "Reflections in 3" for University Theatre’s production of the Young Choreographers' Showcase. The showcase will exhibit selected works done by undergraduate and graduate students from the Weitzenhoffer School of Dance.
“It was hard for me to even think about choreographing it. I had to push myself to do it, but I think for me more than anything it was a stress reliever to just get that emotion out,” Valdes said.
The piece is centered on three girls battling depression, but each girl copes with her depression in a different way. One is closed off and doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it, another is very naive and the last girl is very angry and frustrated, he said.
Many of Valdes' pieces end on good or happy notes, but with the nature of this piece and the emotional termoil, Valdez found it best to show that depression never fully goes away. It can be overcome but many fall back into it.
“It’s kind of like a cycle. You go through it. It might stop, and you grow a lot more, but it can happen again, and you just have to keep picking yourself back up,” Valdes said.
To express these emotions in the choreography to his dancers, Valdes took the opportunity to sit down with his dancers about his ideas before working on the movement during his first rehearsal, he said.
Breehannah Young, one of Valdes’ dancers, is outgoing and frustrated about her situation. Through conversations with Valdes about his vision, Young was able to go to that place while she was dancing, she said.
“It’s just nice to work with a choreographer who has such a strong vision and passion,” Young said. “He was so clear about it; he knew what he wanted, and he would allow us to explore that emotional side.”
This rehearsal allowed Valdes to intertwine his experience with his dancers to produce movement and emotions authentic to his dancers.
Valdes’ inspiration came not only from his own personal experience but also from the music. To create the movement in the piece, he simply went into the studio to see what happened.
“For me it was go into the studio and just see what happens. I didn’t really have an idea of what I would come out with when I walked in,” Valdes said. “I was really just playing around with different things. I knew after about the third rehearsal there would be a lot of rolling to represent the emotional roller coaster.”
For Valdes, the joy of choreographing comes from working with other dancers and reflecting on his own life and putting those emotions into movement, he said.
“I really believe that this dance was a reflection for me; it was something I felt, it was very personal and I was so comfortable with my dancers is that I could put it on them and work with them,” Valdes said.
