Dance Review | The UCSB Theatre and Dance Department Presents Kinetic Lab

UCSB Theatre and Dance Students Showcase Their Choreography Skills

Kinetic Lab, Sixth | Photo: Jeff Liang

The Hatlen Theater at UC Santa Barbara buzzed with energy and anticipation this past Wednesday as loved ones and interested patrons awaited for the curtains to drop.

Kinetic Lab, an annual performance choreographed by junior and senior BFA dance majors, fosters a close community between the dancers and allows for many students to showcase their first choreography project. Both majors and non-majors were featured in the program, and every participating dancer had to audition and be chosen by the student choreographer for each piece.

Wednesday, June 4, was the program’s opening night. Flowers lined the rows as 12 choreographers prepared their dancers backstage. Their quarter-long preparation was all leading to six minutes on stage, and the question that kept coming to mind was “How creative can these student choreographers really get?”

From lighting design to stage formations to unique costume choices and an intersection of tricks and technique, the answer is very creative. While all 12 pieces shared their desire to communicate feelings on the stage, they all did so in different ways and in different dance styles.

The second piece, titled “libertatem ligare” and choreographed by Carly Armitage, was a touching ballet duet by dancers Marcello Marca and Ava McLarand. The dancers had a long, bright red fabric draped around their pristine white costumes to integrate a splash of color into their dancing. The technique was captivating, and the audience was left to deal with the concepts of the grotesque and purity.

Immediately after, a strikingly different but equally awe-inspiring piece by choreographer Sudiksha Bhaduri titled “Pseudo” took up the stage. The dancers’s black costumes darkened the aesthetic of the stage and Bhaduri’s use of song to change the energy in the room was admirable. Slow movements, mixed with dark lighting and building up tension, created an explosion of energy by the end of the dance that left the audience in awe.

The last dance before intermission was choreographed by Reese Overlock, titled: “Break (it) Down.” The five dancers onstage took up space as they emulated a club-scene: dancing, grooving, and hair-flipping without a care in the world. Overlock chose one dancer to represent what seemed like an all-encompassing dread: The lights went dark, the music went low, the movement almost slowed to a halt. And then it all resumed. This interplay between high-intensity movements and energy with dread and sadness felt easily identifiable through the dance.

Each dance presented a different problem, different points of tension, different costumes, and different lighting. The choreographers showed the audience modern contemporary, strobe lights, slow and controlled movements, fast-paced and intense movements, and much more.

The final piece, titled “Get up.” was choreographed by Glo Zearett and the dancers Rachel Lee, Bella Sorokwasz, Tess Lethen, Jillian Silva, Adiya Marcus, and Hannah Shea. Focused on feeling good in one’s body, the dancers came into the audience, and the lights went up as audience members jumped out of their seats to dance to the music. The power in Zearett’s choreography was not its intricacy or tricks, but rather its anticipation for the human body’s need to move, which felt powerful.

Kinetic Lab, Eleventh | Photo: Jeff Liang

The student choreographers LeeAnn Smith, Carly Armitage, Sudiksha Bhaduri, Linn Molin, Delila Bertelsen, Reese Overlock, Sophie Berls, Laura Brown-Arbelaez, Bijou Douglas, Sophia McLoughlin, Zorah Chappel, and Glo Zearett asked the audience to look inward, to appreciate, to notice, and to participate. Their work, though different in many ways, felt very connected as they each showed a part of themselves, creating one diverse circle representing the greater UCSB Theatre and Dance community.

Kinetic Lab 2025 was directed by Brooke Smiley, with a strong production team to make such a performance happen.

For more information on UCSB Theatre and Dance department click here.