The Bowdoin College Department of Theater and Dance in early May presented an evening of original works performed by Bowdoin Dance students and choreographed by faculty Gwyneth Jones and Aretha Aoki. The show included guest performance by Bowdoin alumna Rakiya Orange ’11 and presentations of student choreography.

Rakiya A. Orange holds a BA in anthropology from Bowdoin College and an MFA in dance from Hollins University in collaboration with the American Dance Festival, The Forsythe Company and the Frankfurt School of Music and Performing Arts. A dynamic performer, dance maker, educator and writer, Orange began her love for the arts by studying at the Arena Players, the oldest continuously running African American theater in the country. In 2014, Gibney Dance commissioned her work Aziza to be performed as part of the inaugural Double Plus Season — artists curating artists. Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, New York, gave Rakiya the opportunity to create a new solo work. Her work entitled bothandor premiered June 2015 in collaboration with artist-archivist Kameelah Rasheed’s exhibit FUTURE PERFECT / indices & marginalia. Rakiya Orange’s article “Behind Barres, Battements, and Bids -Masculinity and Dance in Prison” was published May 2015 in Contact Quarterly’s online journal CQ Unbound.

This event was sponsored by the Alice Cooper Morse Fund for the Performing Arts and the June Vail Fund for Dance.