'Relative Motion’: student choreographers debut new dance works in the the Department of Theatre and Dance’s 2026 spring dance concert

Students discuss the creative inspiration behind the upcoming performances

By HANNAH OSBORN — arts@theaggie.org 

Starting May 14, there will be six opportunities to see “Relative Motion,” the Department of Theatre and Dance’s 2026 spring dance concert. Featuring new works from seven student choreographers, the production explores the idea of motion in reference to other objects, granting freedom to explore topics related to shifting positions.

Student choreographer Mikayla Freeman, a fourth-year environmental science and management and theatre and dance double major, noted the way the pieces have taken many forms.

“I think that this is the most varied in style we’ve ever had this spring concert be,” Freeman said. “We’ve got hip hop, jazz, lyric, true modern, ballet, swing and musical theatre. It’s truly a platter of dance styles for you to enjoy.”

The dancers and choreographers represent a large breadth of the UC Davis student community, in terms of both experience and academic focus, that are brought together by dance. 

“You get all skill levels and styles, and everyone is working so, so hard because a lot of the pieces are quite difficult,” Freeman said. “It really is special to have everyone just be learning so much at the same time.”

Student choreographer Russell Abria, a fourth-year managerial economics major, discussed leading other students to create a new dance piece.

“I was really worried, especially when presenting my style, because I didn’t know if they’d be receptive to it,” Abria said. “They’ve been super willing to learn everything I’ve been giving to them, and it’s created a super welcoming and positive environment.”

Abria’s piece examines death, grieving and the metaphysical world. 

“[The piece is about] the connection between the living and the deceased and how those who have passed on move in conjunction with the people who are still living,” Abria said. “Whenever somebody passes away, people tend to fixate on the people who are still living and how they move on, but I wanted to invert that and think about the person who has passed away as they have to move onto whatever [comes next] without the people that they’ve known their entire lives.”

Student choreographer Diyansha Magesh, a fourth-year psychology major, employed a different angle. Her piece takes a comedic tone, bringing monologue into a mashup of contemporary hip-hop, Bollywood and kuthu, an energetic dance form from India.

“I thought about how in everyday life we put ourselves in situations where we make a fool of ourselves,” Magesh said. “In terms of relative motion, it’s the idea of how time is not linear for everyone, but moves differently for people experiencing different phases of life.”

Other pieces seek to tap into frenetic energy and explore themes of compulsion, as in the work of student choreographer Claire Brown, a third-year cognitive science major, who shared how she crafted different aspects of the presentation. 

“It’s definitely gonna be kind of eerie, creepy,” Brown said. “There’s a sound score where I added small sounds like flies or swarms. I actually recorded myself saying different things and laid it over, so you [can’t] hear it. I’ve done my own sound editing with that.”

Student choreographer Daniela Durkin, a third-year cell biology major, discussed how her piece involves an examination of quantum physics through dance.

“I live in the world of science and art, and I really find it interesting to bridge the gap between them and think about them in different ways,” Durkin said. “I think it’s a really interesting idea to try and take these processes that you can’t see with your naked eye and play with them on bodies that are human.”

Durkin’s piece also seeks to translate scientific theories to the space of movement. 

“I’m playing with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment, which is this idea that if you have one particle that decays into two daughter particles, they must have a spin that sums to zero,” Durkin said. “It starts as a quartet moving together, and then eventually decays into two duets. They finish the piece kind of how they started, but now they’re a duet instead of a quartet.” 

Despite the varied routines, themes and styles of the concert, it comes together to form a production that reflects the effort of students to elevate topics through dance.

“It’s about making something: bringing something to life with a whole team of people,” Brown said. “I feel like that care really seeps in, and you can tell.”

“Relative Motion” will run for two weekends in Wright Hall’s Main Theatre on May 14 to 15 and May 21 to 22 at 7 p.m. and May 16 and 23 at 2 p.m. The first week will feature pieces from MK Modern, with Davis Ballet Company performing in the second week. Tickets can be purchased online, by phone at 530-752-2471 or at the UC Davis Ticket Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

Written by: Hannah Osborn— arts@theaggie.org