Bandaloop performed in the Alys Stephens Center Jemison Hall to kick off the performance season. Photo courtesy of Eric Gray PhotographySurabhi Rao - Features Editorfeatures@insideuab.com
“I’ll give you the shortened version of how we came to be. I’m a dancer who started rock climbing and I brought the worlds together,” Amelia Rodholf said as she introduced the audience at the Alys Stephens Center to Bandaloop.
On Friday, Sept. 23, founder and artistic director Rodholf started off the Alys Stephens Center’s presentation of Bandaloop with a talk explaining how the vertical dance performance group came about. For 25 years, Bandaloop has been working on developing the artform.
Bandaloop is a dance group that characterizes themselves as “pioneers in vertical performance.”
They spend the year performing and making videos dancing in unconventional places, such as the sides of buildings, cliffs, skyscrapers, bridges, billboards and historical sites. The group showed previews of their artform on the side of the Campus Recreation Center building throughout the week in advance of their main performance on Friday.
They opened in Jemison Hall with dancers hanging in the air from ropes that swung through the audience while dance videos featuring performances on the sides of cliffs and other steep surfaces played on a screen in the venue. A cellist played music accompanying the movements of the dancers. This was followed by a performance outside of the Alys Stephens Center.
Dance performer Jessica McKee recounted her story of joining Bandaloop.
“I saw Bandaloop performing in San Francisco on the outside of a building in an alley,” McKee said. “I was doing circus training at the time and I just fell in love with that specific body of movement.”
When asked about her experience in Birmingham, McKee had positive things to say.
“We love it here,” McKee said. We’re really glad to see people came out and we are really happy that the event is free. It is important to share art with as many people as possible and we feel strongly about that.”
First year medical scientist training program student Shreya Kashyap, a new resident of Birmingham, saw the event in contrast with her previous home in New Orleans, LA.
“When I moved here people talked about breweries and such, but there is more to do here if you aren’t into that scene. I like this event because it’s a little classier,” Kashyap said. “I mean look at this crowd, I did not expect this many people here. We expected more students but we have the whole crew here and that’s pretty cool, too.”
Nursing student Miles Erbe commented on the way that Bandaloop brought the community together.
“It doesn’t take much to get a big community like ours together,” Erbe said. “I heard about this event today and it’s really cool to be out here with everybody, even on short notice.”
Neuroscience major Raktima Datta noted the way that the event added to UAB’s title as a hidden gem.
“This event is one of the unique things that UAB offers, and it makes going to UAB awesome,” Datta said.
In addition to UAB students, many Birmingham residents attended the event. Families brought blankets and lawn chairs to watch the second half of the performance outside Alys Stephens, as dancers rappelled down the side of the building.
Among these residents, David Hargett saw what he believed were aspects of social justice to the event. Hargett is a physical therapy assistant and a staff sergeant in the Army Reserve who came with his girlfriend and her daughter.
“There are protests and all that but lets build on the things that we enjoy together, Hargett said. “For something like this to be here, I mean the South is so ready for this. There is a mix of everybody here. There is a colorless thing to poetry and art and all that it stands for. Let us build now to change the future. People here are hungry for this type of event. We are ready for the opportunity to indulge in this type of event, an artistic endeavour that is new to us. We all benefit.”
For more information about Bandaloop, visit bandaloop.org
