Exploring public affairs through dance

On October 17th, our founder and Director Sandra Paola Lopez R.  was invited back to Missouri State University (MSU), her Alma Mater, to share her artistic work and the development of in2improv. Her visit was centered around two activities that were part of the College of Arts and Letters homecoming schedule: giving a master class to students from the Theatre and Dance Department and giving a 60-minute talk to the broader community.

​The master class she gave centered around timing in improvisation and composition. How can you alter and change the duration and speed of both your movements and pauses? How is that affected by other elements in the space? How does the element of timing play into a spontaneous composition in a small improvising ensemble? Her and 40+ students explored and played with these questions coming up with new ways of understanding and seeing dance and collective creativity. Students responded positively, expressing how the exercises really expanded their view of movement and the importance of attention and awareness in improvising/composing.

Her talk later in the afternoon was titled From Personal Passion to Global Commitment: Performance, Activism and Community Engagement. It outlined Lopez’s journey to the performance activism movement we are part of, while connecting back to her experience at MSU and how her work now reflects strongly the university's Public Affairs mission. As part of the highlights of her talk, she included the programs with CCOMPAZ and The Cattleya Project that we currently run in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

We are very proud to continue to see her(our) work highlighted through out the US and beyond. Congratulations!