As the lighting dims to near-darkness, Olivia Schafer’s disembodied torso appears to dance above the black Marley floor.
Schafer and the other dancers, clothed in white turtlenecks and jet-black pants, seem to float through the intricate routine.
Inspired by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio adaptation of “The War of the Worlds,” Schafer, a fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance and communication studies student, said her piece recreates the chaos that ensued during Welles’ original broadcast, when listeners assumed that the extraterrestrial invasion piece was real.
“I wanted to capture the alien character and mind,” Schafer said. “I told the dancers to be okay with feeling weird, and be okay with crawling on the ground and articulating your body in weird ways,”
Schafer’s piece, titled “The Warning,” is a five-person hip-hop, jazz and contemporary dance that will be performed at this year’s WACsmash’D, hosted by the world arts and cultures/dance department in Kaufman Hall. Produced by Schafer, along with fellow fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance students Alyson Soong and Ricki Quinn, WACsmash’D showcases 16 performance pieces incorporating film, photography, spoken word and dance.
This year’s theme is “mosaic,” and is complemented by an installation, pieces of which will be sold next door to raise money for Create Now, a nonprofit organization that provides mentoring and arts workshops to underprivileged youth in Los Angeles.
The installation has two components: a large picture frame composed of many smaller frames, and handmade pots, both sets of pieces decorated with colored shards of glass tile. The separate frames and pots were each created by one of the groups performing in the show. Schafer said that putting the pieces together created a mosaic that embodied the themes of WACsmash’D.
“The mosaic is an analogy for the show,” Schafer said. “All these different works are coming together in the way tiles in mosaics are put together to create a larger masterpiece.”
Schafer said the installation’s varied composition reflects the varied points of view that each performer’s piece brings to WACsmash’D. In her piece, the dancers are aliens. Schafer said this is expressed through sharp, robotic movements and accompanying projected images of technological materials that represent an alien’s mind.
Another piece, choreographed by Negeen Farida, a third-year world arts and cultures/dance and psychology student, presents a very different scenario. Farida’s piece tells the story of her immigrant parents who struggled to achieve a better life in America.
Each dancer in the piece, all first-generation Americans, interviewed their parents (shown in a video playing before each dancer’s segment) to get a better idea of their struggles. Farida said that instead of performing in unison, each dancer does a separate improvisation to emphasize their own style and thereby, their background.
“By improvising, the dancers highlight their individual strengths to highlight the individual struggles each family went through,” Farida said. “Our piece focuses on the diversity of the department by examining different forms and cultures.”
Farida, whose parents emigrated from Iran, said that she wrote the piece to pay homage to the sacrifices made by her parents.
“Our pieces are a tribute to (our parents) and how they got here, thanking them for their bravery,” she said.
A third piece, which is less about a personal point of view and more about human interaction, is choreographed by Johnny Hernandez, a third-year world arts and cultures/dance student.
Hernandez said the piece focuses on the tense movements between him and fourth-year world arts and cultures/dance student Erica Angarano. He said that this portrays the body language of attraction, emphasizing the negative space between their bodies.
“My piece focuses on the energy exhibited between two bodies that are attracted to each other when they are first introduced,” Hernandez said. “The negative space shows that there is something to fill between them.”
Schafer said that these vastly dissimilar pieces present a rare opportunity for UCLA students to learn more about the complexity of art.
“WACsmash’D is a great opportunity to experience the power of art, what it can say and express,” Schafer said. “It shows that art can provoke social change that can really affect the world.”