Trinity AT La MaMa

Two dancers sit motionless onstage at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York City. Arms wrapped in an embrace, their heads rest dreamily together while their legs reach out, lithe like tree roots.

Choreographer Xinyi Zhang ’25 closes her eyes and waits for the music to start and the lights to brighten. The audience blurs from her consciousness; she turns inward, anticipating her New York debut.

Zhang’s piece, In Between the House Light and the Sunrise, is the culmination of her study-away semester with the immersive Trinity/La Mama Performing Arts Program. As one of 14 students from across the country accepted into the highly competitive program last fall, Zhang’s capacity as a performing artist ballooned.

Remarkably, when she first arrived at Colby from the United World College in Changshu, China, she had not considered dance as a field of study. In just four semesters, Colby’s Department of Performance, Theater, and Dance changed that by giving her flexibility to follow her creative curiosity, an array of opportunities to connect her interests, and a space where she felt supported and safe to take risks.

By the time the music and lights coaxed her into movement on the La Mama stage, she knew exactly what to do.

“It feels really good,” she said of performing. “And really right.”

An arts mindset

Arriving at a place where performance felt nourishing and welcome was a process for Zhang, a Chinese native who came to Colby as a Davis United World College Scholar with her heart set on becoming a math teacher.

Growing up in a Shanghai family with no background in the arts, she took casual ballet classes as a young girl and acted in theater in high school. Even so, the arts always felt far away from her.

Once on Mayflower Hill, the abundance of dance classes intrigued her. In her first semester, she experienced two creative processes—a first-year dance project and a play—where students had the agency to author their roles through experiments and prompts instead of being subject to a top-down directorial model. She was excited by the access to experimentation while being in a supportive, collaborative environment. 

Article by Laura Meader

 

SOURCE: https://news.colby.edu/story/bringing-curiosity-to-trinity-la-mama-program/

 

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