As dancers kick, shuffle, spin and run off the stage in unison, the Panoramic Dance Project focuses on teamwork and takes on a unique and accurate interpretation of the Wolfpack.
In their performance on Thursday night, 13 dancers stood militantly under disembodied blue lights in what looked like blue denim shirts. Suddenly, as the lighting switched to red and blue, their shirts appeared red and blue, too. Standing behind a lone dancer up front in the colorful darkness, they looked like a kind of jury in a celestial, abstract courtroom of dance.
An NC State academic dance company, the Panoramic Dance Project’s name contains ambiguity that allows for different possibilities of what it could entail. According to its definition as panoramic, it offers audiences a wide, sweeping view of all the aspects of the performance; its craft, emotion and its story.
The performance resembled a dream more than anything else, containing a soft range of lights under which dancers moved with intense speed and force. The dancers achieved this feat silently, creating a pleasant range of moods and tones that left a quiet and receptive audience impressed.
Morgan Broadnax, a first-year studying communication, was among many students to experience the performance, which is a part of Arts NC State and was held at Stewart Theatre again on Friday night.
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect based on the title, but it was a lot to take in,” Broadnax said. “They made this performance their own, and did some things that seemed random to me, but it worked, it fit.”
The Panoramic Dance Project boasts diversity of many kinds, which should be no surprise coming from an NC State dance company. The performance contained a beautiful union of ethnicities and cultures, but also of different artistic interests and personalities.
Adrian Haywood, a first-year studying business administration, praised his fellow dancers for their rich characteristics.
“It’s such a versatile group,” Haywood said. “We have Afro-Cuban influences, we have Latinx dancing influences, we have tap dancing, singing, guitars. We have a wide array of different talents, different races and different backgrounds.”
He described the experience of having to put himself out there to a crowd that witnesses his intimate movements and expressions, a side of him that not many people he knows gets to see.
“At first, it was really difficult but the further you go into the year, the more easy it gets, and the more connected you feel to the piece and the people that you dance with,” Haywood said. “It honestly becomes very therapeutic after a while, and it gives you this sense of liberty and lets you explore different parts of you that you never knew about.”
The show began with a solo performance by Brooke Yannayon, a fourth-year studying communication, featuring the intersection and harmony of tap dancing, singing and spoken word poetry, with varying rhythms from different genres being demonstrated.
The performance was marked by different genres of music unified by the seemingly endless acrobatic and unpredictable dancing done by the group. Two groups would be performing different dances, while some would run away and others would dive in from offstage, literally, to join a group in perfect rhythm and motion.
In place of an intermission, the performance had two solo acts from Katie Quinn, a third-year majoring in international studies, who sang and played the guitar, demonstrating remarkable mastery of instrument and voice outside of dancing.
The routine absence and appearance of stage lights would present a new selection of the 13 dancers, a new tale being told by the interpretative dancing that was a melodious blend of modern and hip-hop among other influences unknown to the nondancing layperson.
Daniela Patiño-Zabaleta, a second-year studying business administration, believes that being part of the Panoramic Dance Project informs her 10-plus years of dancing rather than the other way around. Her Colombian background has given to proficiency in the majority of Latin dancing, but her dancing in this group is different.
“Thanks to the director, Ms. Francine Ott, I have been able to explore dancing at a different level,” Patiño Zabaleta said. “And when I say this, I mean I stopped focusing less on movement and motions and following steps, and instead I started exploring emotion.”
Patiño Zabaleta highlighted how Ott, a dance lecturer and the dance director of the Panoramic Dance Project, has a background in mental health counseling and takes the time to know each dancer personally so that she may go above and beyond in inquiring about their personal lives and health.
“With Panoramic, and specifically with Ms. Francine Ott, I have been able to explore my human experience through dance,” Patiño Zabaleta said. “So it’s not just about how pretty it looks, or how the steps follow, but also the emotions that are behind the choreography.”
Students perform in the Panoramic Dance Project by NCSU Dance at Stewart Theatre on Friday, March 23.
