Dance MFA Thesis – “a cat in the classroom”

a cat in the classroom is a collaboration between Samuel B. Hanson, UWM Dance MFA candidate, and Nora Price, a Milwaukee-native living and working in the Western U.S. known for a string of excellent post-punk bands and experimental dance films. 

Performances mine disparate sources: French movies of the late nineties, classic American literature and educational theory, manuals for the physical restraint of mentally ill people, contact improvisation, and the study of intimacy to explore the notion of defining dance as nothing more or less than the implication of a partner’s body. This new work takes its title from Theodore Roetke’s out-of-print Straw for the Fire, itself a meditation on teaching and learning as a metaphor for volatile human relationships.

This project is created in conjunction with the UWM Department of Dance in partial fulfillment of work towards an MFA in Dance. Additional support made possible by a choreographic residency at the UWM Peck School of the Arts Department of Dance.

Performance by Alexandra Barbier, Kaleigh Dent, Meg Gourley, & Samuel Hanson.