‘Dancing on the Edge’ returns in April

This year’s "Dancing on the Edge" will feature guest choreographer Ja’Nae Washington, who graduated from Radford University as a dance major in 2013. Since then, she has been teaching and dancing professionally in New York City, and has worked for a number of celebrities including 50 Cent, Trey Songz, Remy Ma, Ashanti and Ne-Yo. Her credits include television appearances on networks such as MTV, BET, Starz and others. Dance students were excited to have the opportunity to work with Washington, as her expertise in hip hop offered a chance for them to explore the genre. Senior dance major Alexa Austin says that Washington was able to provide an intense, unique experience for dance students. “Ja’Nae came in and did a one-week intensive set of rehearsals for one piece. We had to learn the choreography quickly, the way the commercial world sometimes works. I want to go into commercial dance so I connected with that,” says Austin.

Faculty in the program have a variety of works planned for the spring 2021 “Dancing on the Edge.” James Robey will be debuting a piece called “Something Borrowed, Something Blues,” which he describes as contemporary blues. Amy VanKirk will be choreographing a multimedia performance titled “Allostasis” that was created with members of the biology program. The dance is about songbirds and their reactions to stress, and was funded with a CVPA research and scholarly project grant. Deborah McLaughlin’s students will perform a dance titled “The Cookie Crumbles” which, according to McLaughlin, “reflects on the absurdity of capitalism and the human condition.” Inessa Plekhanova’s students will perform two ballet acts; “Dance of the Bridesmaids” from “Swan Lake,” and “Jug Dance” from “La Bayadere.” Ji-Eun Lee will also feature two performances, the first being a collaboration with a Romanian poet about abstract movement; the second is a collaboration with an English professor dealing with vantage points and how they influence perception.