BY KINZA
PHOTOS BY LYNN LANE
Aimed Dance is a performance arts nonprofit organization that provides the community with the opportunity to be exposed to dance as a fine art. The company does this through educational programming, live performances and a professional network. The collective offers resources to young dancers to reach their dreams through providing supplies and scholarships.
Aimed Dance’s, The Arena, was an intense experience of five rounds that start with human struggle and ends with coming together. The show opened with all of the 2021 company dancers entering the arena heated and ready to fight. A beautiful mess of people aggressively bucking up to each other but never coming in contact. It was like a brawl with no winners, just a release of hostile energy with a line being drawn across the arena splitting it into two sides. Round two is Lamaar Reed depicting an internal struggle. He is fighting himself, convulsing and reaching for something but his mind is holding him back. His round ends with him on the floor exhausted, panting with the battle being over. Round three is Haley White’s fight with self-perception.
She dances around the arena drawing attention to physical attributes as if she isn’t satisfied with her vessel. Spotlights turn on and off highlighting her body and gestures towards herself. Round four comes back to the line drawn down the arena. Kalee Irwin, Mia Paul, Aaron McClendon and Sarah Vicery enter the arena from opposite sides. The music is so loud with the hustle and bustle of instruments, and you can hear the repetition of “Get outta town” muddled in the noise. They sit in chairs facing each other so close, this line arguing with their dance. At some points they do cross to the other side as if they have won at convincing the other. Round five is a coming together of Tyler Rooney and Rachel Curtis. The whole performance they are in sync and do not come out of contact with each other. The Arena was theirs and there was no struggle between the two. This last round allowed the viewers to release the breath we were all holding in.
An interview of the Aimed Dance founder, Amy Elizabeth
What motivated me (Amy Elizabeth) to start the company?
The company was originally founded in 2006 as Rednerrus Feil Dance
Company with the primary focus of creating and producing new dance
works. In 2016, I returned to SETX upon accepting a position within the
Lamar University Department of Theatre & Dance. It was during the
transition that I made the move to rebrand the company as Aimed Dance
and shift the primary focus to educational opportunities through
creating and producing new dance works.
Personally, education has moved to the forefront of my focus encouraging a shift from product to process. Aimed Dance houses three internship style programs including:
The Apprentice Company – performance, The Young Professionals Production Team – production, and The Aimed Team – administration, covering all aspects needed to produce new works.
The Arena was the first project to include all three areas as it was a part of a two-week performance residency held at Lamar University.
What do we (the audience) have to look forward to?
The company is currently working to piece together a more traditional
style summer/fall performance that would include all three internship
programs as well as an emerging choreographers residency giving young
artists an additional opportunity to explore avenues through the dance
world. We hope to present two works from young professionals, two works
from nationally recognized dance artists, and two from myself as the
company’s resident choreographer. We are continuing to find new ways to
engage with the SETX community and look forward to a series of
site-specific works in collaboration with local establishments this
summer.
What did The Arena mean to me (Amy Elizabeth)?
The idea was inspired by a Brene Brown quote, “If you’re not in the
arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your
feedback.” Step in, let’s talk about it. This led me to more of Ms.
Brown’s research on shame, guilt, vulnerability, perfectionism, and
courage. The arena styling of the show created an opportunity visually
to place each section as a new round of human exploration and
investigation from an outward to an inward perspective and approach.
Each work has the potential to stand on its own while living within the
world we created for it. Much like we as humans are constantly
negotiated the individual’s role as a part of the whole, we see the
characters processing and negotiating their own moments inside and outside of the ensemble.