With its intergenerational membership, The Moving Company celebrates the art of dance for all ages.
by SUSAN HOUSTON KLAUS
In 2013, Ben Cass already had a variety of dance experience. Over about eight years, he’d become skilled in Lindy Hop, swing, and Charleston. But he was looking to expand his repertoire, and he was ready to try a different discipline: modern dance.
“This is something I really love and enjoy, and I had taken all the classes. I was thinking, ‘How do I get better at dancing?’” Cass said.
His older brother had been involved with The Moving Company at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The organization, a performing modern dance group under the auspices of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and the School of Health and Kinesiology, dates to 1935.
Over the years, the company has earned a respected reputation as a source of dance education and for bringing imagination to life through its troupe of skilled performers and collaborative partnerships in the community.
Cass took a figurative and literal leap and auditioned. He didn’t make it the first time, but he was encouraged to enroll in a beginner ballet class. He was eventually accepted as an apprentice in 2014 and became a member of the company the following year. This spring, he made his debut as a choreographer, crafting a piece performed at the group’s annual showcase.
Cass’s experience is just what The Moving Company aims to provide to its members, said Director Danielle Laurion.
“We really want to give opportunities for people who want to move and want to have that connection but maybe don’t have as much of the skill level that some of the other people in the company have,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to build those skills and to build that community. We have some people like Ben who have come from other styles of dance into modern.”
Members include recent high school graduates to 60- and 70-plus-year-olds who have been members for decades. Every Sunday, the 40-member group holds weekly practices on campus.
The intergenerational model nurtures a special kind of collaboration among members.
“The wealth of knowledge that is created within the company is amazing to witness. It’s great to see the mentorship that starts to happen within the company because of that and within the greater community as well,” Laurion said.
The Moving Company regularly brings dance to the Omaha community to enjoy through its annual Thriller performance at Halloween at the Durham Museum and its spring showcase held at UNO. The group has also performed at nontraditional venues around the city, including dancing across the Bob Kerrey Bridge for National Water Dance Day and on the steps of the Omaha Public Library.
To help members gain different perspectives in dance — and maybe to nudge them a little outside of their comfort zones and to rely on their imaginations to become more effective, confident, and connected storytellers — Laurion brings in different teachers to work with the company.
“I always saw [improvisation] as being something that dancers were terrified of, so I realized we needed experience with it,” Laurion said. “We needed to see that it wasn’t so scary — that it was a way to not only understand ourselves better and see what creativity, what imagination was living inside our own bodies but also to see how that helps connect and interact with other bodies in the space. It’s been amazing to see the transformation in the company members.”
Nicole Kropatsch has been a guest teacher for The Moving Company. Two years ago, she moved to Omaha from St. Louis, where she had a long career as a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director.
In her instruction, Kropatsch said she aims to tap into the playful whimsy that imagination sparks and explore the depth of how imagination feels in one’s body. As she gets to know people in the company, she’s appreciating the varied experiences each member brings.
“It might be young people who are still kind of exploring dance in a new way, in a very technical way. It could be people that are kind of using dance as exploring their next step within a professional career. Or there are people there that are older, and dance was a huge part of what they did and they’re just trying to keep moving their bodies. When you’re coming from very different walks of life and having had dance in your life in different capacities for different lengths, you bring a different depth to it,” she said.
When Cass had the opportunity to choreograph his first piece, he was able to bring to the experience his previous dance knowledge coupled with a new set of skills he’d developed with The Moving Company.
His process started with a list of words representing a four-part dance: creation and imagination; grief, obsession and escapism; coping with loss and hope; acceptance and sacrifice.
While Cass had a vision for the steps and movement, he was open to seeing how the dancers interpreted his material in their auditions. Soon, the process became a collaboration.
“I was really willing to let it inform me,” he said. “I took a video of it to see what movement ideas that they generated. It inspired some things for me.”
That inspiration, coupled with his original imagination, guided Cass through the entire experience, as he learned about making artistic choices to benefit not only his dancers but also the audience who would be seeing his creation.
“I do feel that was a really great sense of coming full circle and seeing the payoff — just having that trust in my dancers before the show and then seeing that really get paid back in that way,” he said. “I really just felt an enormous amount of gratitude.”
