UC Dancers’ winter showcase an annual dance production consists of around 10 dances, and runs about an hour. It is entirely student choreographed, with the exception of one dance every year that is professionally choreographed by a Chicago dance instructor. The dances range from duets to a piece performed by the entire UC Dancers’ company.

The title and theme of this year’s show is “Voices.” It examines the way that we use expression. Each student choreographer is free to take the idea of expression and weave it into their piece how every they see fit. The variety styles and pacing of performances and the songs chosen to accompany each dance will show how individuals can bring their own voice to a single mode of expression. In line with this years “Voices” theme the performance this year will also include one dance set to acappella music performed live at the show by the UChicago Ransom Notes.

“Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and secondhand, incommunicable.” —Aldous Huxley
Choreographer: Gabby Davis
Music: “Aquarium” by Nosaj Thing
Taylor Chamberlain, Samantha Chen, Chelsie Coren, Rachel Seebach

“Sometimes saying nothing says the most.” —Emily Dickinson
Choreographer: Alexandra Berthiaume
Music: “Nothing Left to Say” by Imagine Dragons
Yujia Hu, Patrick O’Connor, Savannah Thais, Serina Wu

“I hold it true whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Choreographer: Miranda Cherkas
Music: “Hold On, We’re Going Home” by Drake, cover by Michelle Jones
Lauren Clarke, Hilde Nelson, Frederica Rockwood, Ava Weiss

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday.” —A.A. Milne
Choreographer: Theresa Couch
Music: “La Rencontre”, “Les Accouplements Répétitifs” by Circus Marcus
Becca Cain, Christine Chin, Laurel Freidenberg, Theodore Watler, Harry Wang

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” —Edgar Allan Poe
Choreographer: Emily Ehrmantraut
Music: “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” by Smashing Pumpkins
The UC Dancers 2013–14 Company

“Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.” —Mark Twain
Choreographer: Danielle Labotka
Music: “Winter Song” by The Head and The Heart
Alexandra Berthiaume, Adoree Kim, Danielle Labotka, Lilly Strieder

“And though she be but little, she is fierce.” —William Shakespeare
Choreographer: Chelsie Coren
Music: “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes
Chelsie Coren, Emily Ehrmantraut, Crystal Ma, Rachel Seebach

Intermission

“But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.” —Pablo Neruda
Choreographer: Ione Locher
Music: “Walking Far from Home” by Iron and Wine, cover by Benjamin Rohrer
Ione Locher

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.” —Maya Angelou
Choreographer: Ava Weiss
Music: “Trust in Me” by Etta James
Lauren Clarke, Chelsie Coren, Frederica Rockwood, Ava Weiss

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also filled with the overcoming of it.” —Helen Keller
Choreographer: Annie Pei
Music: “Julia” by Say Lou Lou
Taylor Chamberlain, Samantha Chen, Emily Ehrmantraut, Annie Pei, Rachel Seebach, Savannah Thais, Serina Wu, Angela Yang

“‘You,’ he said, ‘are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world...’” —Emilie Autumn
Choreographer: Frederica Rockwood
Music: “St. Peter’s Cathedral” by Death Cab for Cutie
Mollie Braley, Lauren Clarke, Elisabeth Davis, Hilde Nelson, Ava Weiss 

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the hear to conquer it.” —Rabindranath Tagore
Choreographer: Natalia Grudzien
Music: “Warrior” by Foxes
Mollie Braley, Samantha Chen, Natalia Grudzien, Annie Pei, Lilly Strieder, Emily Zheng

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.” —Herman Melville
Choreographer: Savannah Thais
Music: “Blue Lips” by Regina Spektor
Lauren Clarke, Elisabeth Davis, Annie Pei, Savannah Thais, Angela Yang

“I want to know what passion is... I want to feel something strongly.” —Aldous Huxley
Choreographer: Hilde Nelson
Music: “My Body is a Cage” by Arcade Fire
The UC Dancers 2013–14 Company