To the Editors:

The review of the Spring Back dance concert by Claire Petras [The Oberlin Review, April 25] ended with this quote: “… hopefully in the future, the Oberlin dance department will be more willing to step out of the limiting prescriptions of modern dance and prominently feature even more inventive, energetic pieces that incorporate other dance forms.” This concert included seven dances, four of which were profoundly influenced by forms outside the “modern” tradition: Capoeira Angola, which is taught here by Justin Emeka; Hip-Hop, which will be featured as the dance program’s big Winter Term project in 2012; Chinese sword dance, offered by our visiting faculty member, Yu Xiao; and tap, by College first-year Jess Gersony. The concert included three pieces that are, according to your reviewer, bound by “the limiting prescriptions of modern dance.” It is possible, I grant you, that there might be a shared aesthetic when people live, work and learn together. I’m not at all certain that that’s a bad thing. Yet a trained eye would see far more differences than similarities among those dances.

The dance program underwent an extensive review, which was concluded just this last fall. To quote our two outside evaluators’ remarks from that review: “The Fall Forward concert, well produced, well attended and lauded by the Oberlin community at large, clearly included a wide variety of styles and abilities.” This more accurately reflects not only our history as a program, but our commitment to supporting diverse dance forms in the past, now and in the future.

-Nusha Martynuk Director of Theater and Dance Professor of Dance