Refracted Elements

Fall '26 Senior Dance Show

The senior dancers choreograph pieces for the SMC Dance Company to perform. Styles include jazz, modern/contemporary, Baile Folklórico, and a little bit of hip hop and tap.

Please purchase your tickets at least 24 hours ahead of time HERE. 

A limited number of tickets are available to be purchased 30 minutes prior to each performance at the Box Office, but we would like to avoid long lines. 

Due to the ARTS ARE ALIVE initiative, SMC students can attend for FREE by showing their valid SMC ID at the Box Office doors.
Faculty, Staff Non-SMC Students: $15 *plus minimal fees at the door or online
General Admission: $20 *plus minimal fees at the door or online
We encourage you to choose the SMC Dance Supporter ticket option, if you are able to. These funds help pay for taking our dancers to the American College Dance Association, where they participate in performances, classes, and scholarly exchange.

The Nov. 14 3pm show will be livestreamed. Please make a suggested $20 donation HERE before watching the livestream.The link will be posted on this website on Nov. 14. It may not be paused or rewatched as it is live. 

Donations to the Dance Program: stmarys-ca.edu/dancegives

LOCATION:
View a map and get directions.

DESCRIPTION: 
The Expressive & Performing Arts Division of Saint Mary’s College presents the Saint Mary’s College Dance Company’s annual fall dance concert “Refracted Elements” which features a variety of works choreographed by our seniors Deja Antes, Madison Erwin, Lola Gonzalez, Sydney Newton, Ilayda Ozbilgin, Julia Peterson, and Daniella Wilson. Seniors’ works will be performed by our students of the Saint Mary’s College Dance Company and Baile Folklórico Guadalupano. Styles included in the concert will feature Baile Folklórico (Mexican folk dance), Modern/Contemporary Dance, and Hip Hop Dance. The evening is supported by our resident Lighting Designer, Matthew Cohen and Directed by Professor CatherineMarie Davalos.

Sydney Newton’s contemporary dance piece titled The Space Between Time is an exploration of overwhelming emotions and the sensations of time and rhythm. There is a sensation of both disorientation and being trapped inside repetitive thoughts, emotions, and memories. The dancers represent different ways of experiencing and responding to time, while time itself remains the central force of the work. Repetition serves as the central choreographic drive, which keeps bringing back familiar feelings and patterns that resurface throughout the work. By slowing down, speeding up, and repeating actions, the dancers show how movement can stretch time and make it feel strange. Through movement and visual design, the work ultimately considers how we cannot control time, but must learn to move within its rhythm. 

Reclaim my Body, choreographed by Julia Peterson, is a street style dance following her journey with coping and overcoming health anxiety while still being her confident self. Through the street styles of waacking, robot, waving, krump, with hints of non western styles such as belly dance and West African, she explores the fear of anxiety, the sadness and frustration of having to deal with it, the battling to get better, and the triumph of feeling like your old self again. There are opposing sides: dancers representing her, and the dancers representing anxiety. Both sides foster differing movement styles: full body movements vs isolated, jittery, erratic, and robotic movements. Each section follows a different chapter of the process: her true self, feeling anxious, the frustration and sadness that follows, the battle, and reclaiming her body. 

The modern dance piece Somewhere Between Chapters ventures through Ilayda Ozbilgin’s experience of moving between countries and communities from a young age. Her work explores transition, connection, and the people who shape us along the way. It’s based on the metaphor of viewing life as a book, one made up of constantly changing chapters, characters, and stories. Some people enter for only a few pages before their story with us ends; some return in later chapters, their presence taking on new meaning. Others stay, becoming woven into the story so deeply that they begin to feel like home. Through solos, duets, trios, and ensemble movement, the dancers embody the relationships within these chapters, coming together, growing apart, returning, and moving forward. Fluidity, repetition, connection, dynamic movements, and separation reflect the passing of time and the constant tension between holding on and letting go. 

Madison Erwin’s Divided Within is a modern contemporary dance exploring the complex relationship between the heart and the brain. The piece focuses on the tensions between logic and emotion, structure and intuition, and control and creativity. Although these forces can feel completely opposite to one another, Divided Within seeks to portray how these forces constantly interact and ultimately rely on each other within the human experience. In the beginning, the two groups, brain and heart, are distinctly separated through their movement qualities. The brain represents structure and control through precise and intentional movement, while the heart represents intuition and emotion through fluid and melodic movement. Ultimately, the work serves as a psychological exploration of how thought and emotion shape our everyday decisions, perceptions, identity, and experiences. 

Mis Mariposas Queridas, choreographed by Lola Gonzalez, is a Baile Folklórico piece focusing on honoring the roots of her family, featuring the states of Mexico Nayarit, Durango, and Chihuahua. Mariposas share a strong symbolism within Latine communities, more specifically the Monarch Butterfly in Mexico. This dance number does not only share the beauty of the culture but it also shares the biographies of her abuelos, and their time in Mexico. The piece shares the strength and resilience of Nayarit, with masculine and feminine dancers not only showing cultural strength and pride, but strength through the machetes as they protected themselves and each other in the forest town of Nayarit. She wants to share the love story of her abuelos from Durango and Chihuahua through the combination of states with a masculine presenting dancer as Durango and a feminine presenting dancer as Chihuahua.

The modern dance piece “The Darkness That Lurks Within,” created by Daniella Wilson, explores themes of fear, possession, and the psychological breakdown of a family that is haunted by an unknown supernatural force. Her piece is inspired by horror films like The Conjuring, Insidious, Annabelle, and The Babadook. As the piece begins to unravel, the dark presence slowly starts to reveal itself and begins to affect each of the family members. The choreography reflects these themes through sharp movement, stillness, repetition, gestures, and tensions. As the piece progresses, the possession becomes both physical and emotional, portraying how fear can spread from one person to another. Daniella navigates not only true horror but the ways in which human emotions such as fear, anxiety, survival, denial can not only affect the body and mind but also relationships.

Panagiggem is a modern contemporary dance work created by Deja Antes that explores the “growing pains” of her relationships with her great-grandmother and older brother. In Ilocano, Deja calls her great-grandmother Inang, meaning mother, and her older brother Manong, meaning older brother. The title Panagiggem represents the idea of holding on to the people we love as our relationships change over time. The work features seven dancers, with two representing Inang, two representing Manong, and three representing Deja. Through partnering, lifts, floorwork, unison, and contrasting movement qualities, the dancers portray the changing dynamics within each relationship. The choreography explores trust, support, separation, and the difficulty of holding on to loved ones as life changes. Set to Filipino music, the piece incorporates Deja’s cultural heritage as an essential part of her storytelling. Ultimately, Panagiggem is a tribute to family, resilience, and the lasting impact of the people who shape our lives.