Panoramic Dance Project Spring Concert Showcases Cross-Campus Collaboration

NC State’s Panoramic Dance Project, under the Department of Performing Arts and Technology (DPAT), is dedicated to creating a vibrant and supportive environment that encourages students to challenge themselves and explore their unique voice, agency and artistic abilities. 

Christa Oliver, the dance company’s director, aims to do this by exposing her students to as many different dance styles, guest instructors and artists as possible. 

On March 20 and 21, the Panoramic Dance Project’s annual spring concert, titled Panoramic Dance Project: Reframed, will go above and beyond in that endeavor, bringing together modern, tap, jazz, hip-hop, African and Latin dance styles. The concert will bear the fruit of a collaboration between several NC State departments and North Carolina Central University (NCCU), showcase dance styles learned from various artists in residence this school year, and even feature the work of North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green. 

“I love collaborating anyway,” Oliver said. “That’s just what I do. I think everyone has something important to bring. Everyone has their own way of speaking about art and using art to bring about change. That’s what dance activism is about.”

Powerful Poetry

Over the last few years, Carol Fountain Nix, the director of NC State’s Crafts Center, has worked with Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina’s Poet Laureate, on a project called “WORDS=POWER.”

Nix has endeavored to bring Green’s poems to life through her work as a calligrapher. As she and Green searched for different collaborative opportunities, this Panoramic Dance Project concert came to their radar, and a connection with Oliver formed quickly. 

In the late 2010’s, Green wrote a powerful poem titled “Oh My Brother,” in response to police killings of unarmed people of color in the United States. 

The opportunity to engage in conversation with Jaki was mind-blowing.

“When I sat down to write, the words, ‘Oh, My Brother,’ came to me because I realized it could have been my brother, my husband, my son, my neighbor, one of my students, anyone I knew,” Green said. 

The Panoramic spring concert will open with a dance piece that Oliver choreographed based on “Oh My Brother,” as the poem and its message resonated with her. 

“The opportunity to engage in conversation with Jaki was mind-blowing,” Oliver said. “I am committed to honoring her poem by using this project to bring a voice to the voiceless. I believe that dance activism offers a distinct lens through which to examine these experiences and serves as a powerful tool to bring about change.”

Collaborating with Jaki has been one of the greatest honors ever.

Nix and Green’s collaboration will also be on full display in the concert, as Nix has designed stage banners with her calligraphy that reflect the poem.

“Collaborating with Jaki has been one of the greatest honors ever, especially as an artist working with words,” Nix said. “She is infinitely powerful in her words and her expression. To be able to bring that to campus is a dream.”

Green said that, over the years, she has always enjoyed seeing her poetry translated into other art forms such as music and dance. 

For a North Carolina native, seeing her poem performed at a major in-state university such as NC State will be a dream come true for Green, who will attend and speak at the March 20 opening night performance. 

“Every time I write a book, every time I produce a commissioned work, it’s like giving birth to something brand new,” Green said. “Even when I’m not the mother doing it, or the life form, I still feel very connected to the fact they approached me, I believe in collaboration where I’m not a micromanager. I’m offering artistic feedback if they ask me for it. Christa and I have had a great time talking. Christa gets the poem. She appreciates the poem, and for her students to be willing to take this body of work on; it’s not an easy poem. I really respect and honor that they would take on a poem that pushes them to be very vulnerable, not just in their craft on stage, but they’re embodying this poem, and I’m very humbled and honored by that.” 

An NC State Collaboration

The concert that audiences will witness is the result of a collaboration between numerous NC State departments. 

One of my favorite things about being at NC State is working with other faculty across disciplines.

Within DPAT, Oliver also turned to Peter Askim, the department’s director of orchestral studies. When jazz and R&B artist Phillip Brandon delivers a soul-stirring interpretation of Green’s poem in the opening act, it will be accompanied by music that Askim wrote and composed himself, guiding the audience through an emotional musical journey.

“One of my favorite things about being at NC State is working with other faculty across disciplines, whether it’s in the arts or across to the sciences, but just connecting with people who are doing amazing work in whatever their field is, and then trying to harness all of that energy into something greater than the sum of the parts,” Askim said. “It’s really a thrill to be able to work so closely with these kinds of artists.” 

NC State Libraries will also join in the experience, with Research Librarian Shaun Bennett set to film the performance with a 360-degree camera. 

These components will, of course, be accompanied by Nix’s stage banners, with all of these NC State departments coming together to enhance this experience for both the performing students and audience members. 

“I feel like this shows the power of the arts at NC State,” Nix said. “We’re not separate units doing our own things. We are a collaboration of brilliant minds, we’re working with students. Artists are natural collaborators. I think we all see the power of visual art, and then you add dance or music and it just escalates. It has infinite impact. So I think taking that energy from the arts programs and being able to bring that to students and allow students to have a place and an agency to express themselves, with words – with visuals, in dance and music through the arts – is truly an experience that students don’t forget.” 

Global Perspectives 

This concert will also see the students perform pieces they’ve learned from artists around the globe this school year. 

Most recently, Gabriel “B-boy Wicket” Jaochico, who has many years of experience as a hip-hop performer, currently teaches at Texas State and recently served as an advisor to the United States Olympic breakers, spent time with Oliver’s students, teaching them a hip-hop piece for the concert. 

“I really enjoyed the students and how they took every challenge and tackled it,” Jaochico said. “These are students who have never done any break dancing before. So to do that in such a short amount of time and to be on the clock, laser focused and sharp, because we only had less than a week together, they tackled every challenge. And I respect them for that, because they’re not only in my piece, they’re in other pieces in the program. So the students really impressed me with how professional they were.” 

The concert will also feature a Flamenco Vivo dance piece, as well as pieces from tap dancer Matthew Shields and artistic director Zach Law Ingram. 

Oliver strives to bring in these dancers from around the country and world to offer her students new perspectives, and to learn specific dance styles from people immersed in the cultures that created them. 

“The world is so much bigger and there’s so much more to experience,” Oliver said. “So for them to have the opportunity to work with international artists is a huge deal. We have students who have never even left the state of North Carolina. For them to learn directly from artists who have collaborated and performed with pioneers in hip-hop, modern, jazz and tap dance is incredibly valuable.”

A Local Connection

This concert will also be the first in a new partnership with the Panoramic Dance Project and North Carolina Central University. 

As part of the spring concert, dancers from the NCCU Repertory Dance Company will perform in the show, while dancers from NC State will perform in North Carolina Central’s spring concert. 

Oliver and NCCU Assistant Professor and Director of Dance Kristi Johnson now hope to forge an annual partnership between the two schools. 

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for both institutions,” Oliver said. “I hope that the relationship we’re cultivating with them becomes a lasting one.”