This year’s Spring Back concert, which opened Wednesday night in Warner Main, features five student-choreographed pieces that explore various themes and ideas that may or may not cross one’s mind during regular, daily activities. Despite the relatively short running time, the concert kept the audience interested with a multitude of captivating performances.

The opening piece, “Limen,” is an aerial show accompanied by live instruments and choreographed by senior Hannah Logan. The dancers demonstrate amazing strength and coordination, catching one another in midair and moving in and around cloth with grace and agility. “Limen” is defined in the choreographer’s notes as “the brink of understanding of a subject; the space before a doorway.”

Also featured in the concert is the choreography of Sonia Reiter in response to the events of September 11.

“There was so much media devoted to scaring people,” Reiter said. The media, she believes, used fear as a tool to control people. She wanted to capture the fear and fearlessness that flashed through many people in response. Reiter sees fear as the most visceral and perhaps most human experience. To fully depict the dynamic between being afraid and remaining unafraid, Reiter experimented with various reactionary movements that portray each emotion, then collaborated with the other dancers’ movements.

“Unfolding Quiet,” Ashley Smith’s senior choreography project is a collaboration piece with senior Cesar Alvarez. According to junior dancer Nic Trovato, the piece was difficult to learn, which made it more exciting when they got it right. “We just had to step up to the challenge,” Trovato said. The accompanying music is composed in counts of seven, in contrast to the dance movements. According to the choreographer’s notes, this contrast made the piece a “semiotic organization of strict and cold movements.”

Unfortunately, the concert consists of only five pieces. A few of the dancers felt there should have been more as there has been a large amount of enthusiasm from the non-dance community for student dance. Otheres believe audiences want to see longer concerts. Some dancers from outside the modern dance genre also feel there is a lack of variety in Spring Back as well as Fall Forward (which took place last semester).

Logan’s and junior Grace Cooney’s pieces brought something entirely different to the concert. Cooney’s piece experimented with eurhythmic movement.

“Dance communities need to come together,” Trovato said. “There shouldn’t be any clear-cut divisions.”

With the emergence of Vibe Dance Company, Dance Diaspora, Colors of Rhythm and other groups, it seems that dancers and performers save their non-modern material for other venues, forgetting that Spring Back and Fall Forward are supposed to be variety dance concerts. It has been suggested that this apprehension is due in part to the faculty committee that selects the pieces for the spring and fall concerts. Spring Back may be faculty-sponsored, but the faculty may not accurately represent the interests of the students and the largest audience attendance comes from students.

“In the future, people are going to want more,” one dancer commented.

The pieces in Spring Back are not fully representative of what is going on in dance, neglecting the intention of these concerts to showcase the variety of dance forms practiced in the Oberlin community.

“The best thing about dancing here is the people you’re dancing with,” Trovato said.