A figure lay on a blue stage. Two lanterns flickered on the ground beside her as Gloria Ahlijah (Sitso), a master’s candidate in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, began to move — first her fingertips, then her whole body.
Ahlijah’s Master of Fine Arts in Dance concert, titled “Touch a Breath — The Body Tells” blends her West African dance background and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness teachings into a 45-minute choreography complete with costumes, lights and sound. Ahlijah and five dancers performed Friday and Saturday night at the Dance Performance Studio Theatre to an audience of more than 60 students and families of the cast and crew.
The Masters of Fine Arts in Dance program at the Music, Theatre & Dance School takes three to four candidates each year. The three-year program culminates in a thesis performance and paper, directed by the student with guidance from a three-person committee of the student’s choosing. Ahlijah chose dance professors Robin Wilson, Amy Chavasse and Antonio Disla, clinical assistant professor of theatre and drama.
Ahlijah began to dance professionally at the University of Ghana when her uncle Sylvanus K. Kuwor, head of the dance department, encouraged her to try a class. Ahlijah graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in dance and said in an interview with The Michigan Daily she wanted to continue her studies at a university where dance receives more institutional support.
“I remember one of my friends asking me, ‘Why would you go to the University (of Ghana) to study dance?’ ” Ahlijah said. “‘It doesn’t make sense.’ Because in my country, dance is not given a level of respect that it could be a mode of inquiry.”
The depth of research that goes into choreography has become more recognized and respected over the years, according to Wilson. Wilson also said the shift is a result of choreographers articulating their process to audiences and drawing from a broad range of inspiration.
“Choreographers are noticing their research and playing into it, diving into all the things that could be feeding them, rather than just operating from their body,” Wilson said.
In Ahlijah’s thesis, dance is a method to research what the body is, what it holds and how it tells the story of everything a person has been through. Ahlijah said the idea clicked when she heard Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, “Our True Home is in the Present Moment” in a class, and quoted lines from memory.
“The miracle is not to walk on water,” Ahlijah said. “The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment.”
Ahlijah said being present in her daily life is difficult, especially with phones as a constant distraction, but mindfulness is crucial during a performance. Ahlijah said she thinks she must be fully immersed in dance for the audience to pick up her energy.
“You are with yourself and within yourself,” Ahlijah said. “Whatever feelings that are represented in the movement come from within.”
Ahlijah told The Daily she was a bit distracted during her Saturday performance.
“I was thinking, ‘Is the song not going to end?’ because I was a little tired,” Ahlijah said. “But you still have to move, you still have to be in that space and be strong.”
As a member of Ahlijah’s thesis committee, Chavasse told The Daily she “witnesses” rehearsals, a particular type of looking that lets performers know they are being seen without being judged. Chavasse said she observes the choices Ahlijah makes and catches her blind spots by asking for the purpose behind them.
“Giving feedback is a real delicate art,” Chavasse said. “Sometimes, you just want them to build, build, build, and then you start to ask questions like, ‘This choice seems less clear,’ or ‘I’m not understanding what these two people are doing.’ ”
Ahlijah began rehearsals in January and met with her dancers three times per week. She drew inspiration from African contemporary dance while choreographing. The style is polyrhythmic and polycentric, meaning different parts of the body move to multiple beats.
Taubman junior Margaret Laakso, who is in Ahlijah’s African contemporary dance class, watched the concert and said she recognized the techniques. In an interview with The Daily, Laakso said the key to the dance style is to stay grounded.
“Because there’s a lot of beats, you’re using the ground to control the movement,” Laakso said. “We do squats all the time — when (Ahlijah) says ‘grounded,’ she means go down further.”
The dancers wore two sets of costumes, both designed by Ahlijah and tailored by Mildred Nortey, her best friend’s sister in Ghana. The first costume was a leotard, matched to each dancer’s skin tone, with a map of Africa on the chest and multi-colored ruffles around the thighs. The second was a black, red and green tulle skirt and a zig zag-patterned top.
African-inspired instruments, mixed with natural soundscapes and the dancers’ breath and barefoot stomps, played throughout the show. At the choreography’s climax, the music stopped, the dancers froze and the lights dimmed. Ahlijah walked onstage with six lanterns, placed one at each dancer’s feet and then repeated the phrase, “there is light in darkness,” six times.
Slowly, the dancers awoke, moving again. They circled Ahlijah and breathed in together. As they breathed out, the music returned and the lights, designed by Rackham student Scott Crandall, emerged in pink and yellow.
The concert ended with a twist: The house lights turned on and the dancers invited the audience onstage, starting with Ahlijah taking Rackham student David Parker by the hand. Parker told The Daily he likes to dance, but he did not expect to be pulled in.
“I felt welcome and safe to go out there so I just went with it,” Parker said. “I felt totally in the moment and it felt better when I saw other people from the audience in my shoes like, ‘What do I do with myself?’”
On stage, the lights warmed to orange as the dancers, both performer and audience, moved to the music and drummed on the floor for Ahlijah’s final bow.
Ahlijah said she hopes to teach dance in universities and share West African culture with people across the African diaspora after graduation.
“Dance bridges that gap between people all the way across the sea and people here,” she said. “The earth our ancestors toiled on is the floor that we use to dance … for African Americans, the moment they begin to learn this dance style, they have a connection to their roots.”
Daily Staff Reporter Emily Sun can be reached at emisun@umich.edu.