The Beauty of Synergy’s “Within a Desert Sea”

Fall semester at Utah Valley University brings out many wonderful surprises for the community to enjoy. One of them is the concert from the Synergy Dance Company entitled “Within a Desert Sea” premiering on the 12th until the 14th of November at the Noorda Center of Performing Arts.

Professor of Dance Amy Markgraf, one of the masterminds for this project, expressed her passion and excitement for what the concert brings to the community with the way it was created through the GEL Faculty Grant that she received. It includes their experience researching and learning about the Great Salt Lake, which greatly inspired the whole project. Partnered with photographer Chris Carlson. “From that experience learning about it, having him teach us, experiencing the lake, just feeling the wind, the smell, observing how vast and big and alive, but also kind of dying at the same time, filling the history, all those types of things.” Markgraf said, “we then came back to the studio and started creating and trying to bring a dance to life about the lake.”

Markgraf also shared her expectations with how she wants this project to impact the audience, ”We just want the audience to maybe feel a little bit of what we felt of the lake and hopefully take home a little [bit] of the lake with them, [the way] we were able to bring home with us.”

Choreographers like Kaitlyn Korpi and Zachary Facer, both from Modern and Contemporary majors, have also shared their experiences with the Great Salt Lake and how they create dance pieces that replicate the beauty they found there. Surrounded by the waters and other natural resources found in the Great Salt Lake, this inspired the team to come up with unique movements that completed their acts. Facer even mentioned that the place happened to expose the team with new textures that helped them interpret what they were feeling into a dance.

“At the lake, there’s being in the water, and it’s like very cold and you also don’t necessarily know where you’re stepping,” Facer described, “some of it is powdery, almost like fresh snow, and some of it is very sharp,” indicating the unfamiliar feeling that challenged the team.

Korpi then shared the process of how the project got to its turning point. “When we were there, we were able to create a little choreographic phrase of our own solos of what we gathered from the place, what we felt there, and what stood out to us,” Korpi said, “we all performed those for each other, and then made like little trios and combined them.”

Korpi continued with how this strategy gave life to each act, “We took like little gems of all those (movements) to incorporate in the piece so that it felt original and real.” Korpi expanded, “we’re not here dancing to show our moves, we’re here to show the realness of the Great Salt Lake.”

Facer then expressed what his hopes are for the audience to learn while watching the performance. “I hope it makes people curious,” he said, “seeing the movement and the images and like the feelings they get from it to go to the lake and experience it.”

The concert led by Synergy Dance Company is an anticipated event to share to the community that an art form like dancing can accurately and creatively portray the beauty of nature, especially the Great Salt Lake.

UVU Synergy Dance Company Instagram