2025 Fall Faculty Dance Concert

Northampton, MA — The Smith College Department of Dance presents the Fall Faculty Dance Concert featuring new work by Smith faculty members Angie Hauser and Neri Torres, and guest artists Ellie Goudie-Averill and Chloe London on November 20, 21, and 22 at 8 p.m. in Theatre 14. The concert includes ballet, Afro-Cuban, and contemporary pieces performed by undergraduate and graduate students from the Five Colleges along with professional dancers. Tickets are $5–10 and available at smitharts.ludus.com.

Angie Hauser intricately combines idiosyncratic movement, partnering, and human behavior in her new sextet, inspired by the complex composition of the aster flower. Guided by her ongoing interest in performance that reveals something about what it means to be human, Hauser highlights the individual in community with an exceptional cast of professional/M.F.A. student dancers. Angie Hauser’s work includes choreography, improvisation, and various forms of performance making. It reflects her investment in long-time collaborative process with Bebe Miller, Chris Aiken, Darrell Jones, and many other talented artists. Hauser is a Bessie Award winning dancer and choreographer. As a principal collaborator with Bebe Miller Company, she has contributed to its critically acclaimed body of work for the last 25 years as a performer, writer, choreographer.

Nerie Torres’ piece celebrates the transformative power of women, inspired by Ochún—the Afro-Cuban goddess of rivers, sweetness, and love. Merging Ochún’s sacred dances with Cuban modern and “reparto” (street) dance styles, the choreography of Solflower embodies sensuality, radiance, and strength. Like golden petals unfolding to the sun, the piece becomes a hymn to beauty and grace in motion. Neri Torres is an artist, educator, choreographer, and scholar. She trained at Havana’s prestigious Instituto Superior de Artes and Escuela Nacional de Instructores de Artes before earning an M.F.A. in dance and a minor in film from the University of Colorado, Boulder. As founder and artistic director of the IFE-ILE Afro-Cuban Dance Company in Miami, she has curated an annual Afro-Cuban dance festival and created works that blend tradition with contemporary dance.

In a body lives in both, a ballet for 18 dancers, Ellie Goudie-Averill explores ways that we can tune into the beauty of our daily lives, nature, and our communities to find hope for our collective future. With a new original composition by Smith music professor Maeve Sterbenz and costumes in an array of colors, the dancers hone into precise movements and find momentum through sweeping phrases, creating a motor of energy for positive change. “It's been a joy working with Maeve on the music,” Goudie-Averill explained. “It's a great tradition in ballet to create the music alongside and in conversation with the dance.” Originally from the Midwest, Ellie Goudie-Averill is a dance artist and educator who works with dancers of all ages on technique and performance. She currently teaches ballet and contemporary dance at Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst colleges and at School for Contemporary Dance and Thought in Northampton, MA. Maeve Sterbenz specializes in music theory. Her research focuses on relationships between human movement and music in concert dance, music videos, and dance films, and she has developed an interdisciplinary approach to her work that bridges music and dance studies.

Chloe London’s piece for nine dancers is an imaginative chapter book full of virtuosic dancing and curious characters. The work focuses on a continuous transformation of the movement landscape, exploring ideas of constant rebuilding and disrupting. London choreographed the piece with support by Michael Figeuora, rehearsal assistant, and creative collaboration with the dancers. The dance features an original soundscore by musician Ryan Wolfe. Chloe London is a choreographer, performer, and teacher. She received her M.F.A. in performance and choreography from Smith College in 2023 and has since taught at UMass Amherst and Mount Holyoke College. She is currently on faculty at Smith College. Her choreography has been presented by Movement Research at the Judson Church, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, School of Contemporary Dance and Thought, and Battery Park Dance Festival.

The Fall Faculty Dance Concert will be held in Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts, 122 Green Street in Northampton. Tickets are reserved seating, $5 for students and 65+, and $10 for adults. Tickets can be purchased online or by emailing BoxOffice@smith.edu.