Word: minyard
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...beautifully proving that they well deserve this long-awaited spot light. Until this past weekend, campus dance performances seemed forever confined to lecture halls and small performance spaces hardly capable of illuminating the subtle beauty and powerful art of dance in live performance. Directors Daphne Adler '99 and Kiesha Minyard '99, both past co-directors of the Harvard Radcliffe Ballet company, obviously knew that the Mainstage is an ideal venue for showcasing Harvard dancers. They had an arduous task in front of them when they set out to convince HRDC that dance belonged on the much-prized Mainstage spring program...
...Minyard herself choreographed the last piece of the first act, a jazzy dance set to Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The orchestra finally managed to pull itself together for this piece, and pianist Jason Leekeenan '02 effortlessly displayed his unbelievable finger-work on the notoriously difficult piano solos. Minyard's sexy, spirited choreography combined jazz moves, classical ballet and wacky gender-bending, and the dancers were obviously all having a ball onstage...
...though, it's all about the dancing, and it's a damn good thing Adler and Minyard beat those 20 long years of horrible odds to bring this sweeping, gorgeous spectacle to light. The hypnotizing waves of bodies in motion, and the pulsating madness of Pink Floyd's beats joined in ways crazy and serene, creating the single best student production I've ever seen on the Mainstage. The tremendous amount of dance talent on this campus came as a welcome and all-too-belated surprise to me; it's about time Harvard dancers received the venues, publicity and support...
...ballet company's pieces, though, the most refreshing was "In the Jazz Club," an almost incidental piece choreographed by company member Kiesha Minyard '99. Dancers Nozomi Nishimura '98, Sunny Wong '01, Erin Conroy '01, Kristi Schaeffer '00 and Selene Kaye '01, glided across the stage with the sleek black clothes and the shmaltzy moves of the Jazz Age hepcats...
...Minyard, who also choreographed for the ballet company, exhibited her flexibility as a choreographer with a beautiful rendition of the Brazilian piece "Magalenha" that was as different from "In the Jazz Club" as it was exciting, and the high-energy choreography of Fabiana Kepler '00 for Ricky Martin's "Maria" drew her dancers' into the highest enthusiasm...