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As the close of the spring semester nears, so does the end of the year celebration, Manifest.  Manifest is Columbia College Chicago’s urban arts festival that celebrates the work of graduating students.  All of campus, as well as the South Loop in general, is converted into art galleries and performance spaces.  Graduate students are collaborating again this year in creating PGA: Please Generate Art, a large putt-putt golf course consisting of various art installations.

This year the DMT & C students are partaking in creating one portion of the course.  Our piece (designed by me and my peer, Courtney St. Clair), is titled, “Down the Rabbit Hole: Do You See What I See?”

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Courtney and I collaborated last year in creating “Bodyscape” for the inaugural PGA.  We had such a great time in creating the performance art piece, we decided to once again submit a proposal, and our proposal was once again accepted.  I don’t want to give too much a way about our piece this year (because if you are in Chicago on Friday, May 4th, you should come check it out), but it includes contact improvisation, lots of clocks and black lights.

We are currently running rehearsals with our DMT & C peers, so that everyone understands the movement themes we’d like to execute and the overall mood we are hoping to create.

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You might think Courtney and I (and the rest of our peers) are crazy to be working on such an extensive project while working on such intense coursework within our program.  And you’re right; we are a bit crazy.  However, what’s nice about working on PGA is that it’s an opportunity to express ourselves creatively and remember that we are dancers in addition to emerging dance/movement therapists.  It’s nice to focus and channel creative energy into something that isn’t graded and that is outside the “therapy” realm.

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What I like most about being involved in PGA is the opportunity to move with my fellow peers (both first and second year DMT & C students).  Although we often move together in class, there is always an academic purpose to this movement.  When rehearsing for PGA, we are moving together for a purpose– one that is artistically driven and more satisfying, for me at least.  Not only that, but it’s nice to get involved and create with other graduate students.  Both for the sake of collaboration, but also to give our program more exposure within the Columbia community.

Manifest is Friday, May 4th and PGA: Please Generate Art will run from 1-7 p.m in 1104 S. Wabash.  If you are in the area, please come by and support graduate student work (it’s free!), including the work from us hard working DMT & C students.