This weekend I was lucky enough to go see friends perform in two great shows: “Execution,” put on by the Expressions Dance Company; and “Othello,” performed by Harvard’s Hyperion Shakespeare Company. Now is the time of year that student groups put on their fall semester exhibitions and performances, having had some time to practice for the past two months. I was excited to get a chance to support my friends and the groups they’re a part of!
First up on Saturday was the Expressions show: “Execution” is the title of their fall dance performance. Expressions is a student-run company that focuses on hip-hop, though they sometimes bring in tastes of other styles. Being someone who is TERRIBLE at dancing, I’m always so impressed by Expressions dancers – they all look so sassy (in the best way possible)! This performance was also great because it incorporated a piece by City Step, a group on campus that volunteers with middle schoolers in Cambridge and teaches them how to dance. Their oldest class, made up of 7th graders, got a chance to partake in the Expressions show and I know they kids were all ridiculously excited about it.
Photo Credit: Gordon Bae
Saturday night I went to see another friend as Iago in a rendition of Shakespeare’s “Othello” done by the Harvard Hyperion Shakespeare Company. Personally, I was completely unfamiliar with the storyline until seeing the play this weekend, and it was kind of nice to be able to watch without comparing their performance to any established opinions or biases. The blurbs advertising “Othello” described it as highly stylized, and it definitely was – all of the characters, aside from Othello himself, were wearing white to symbolize the racial divide defining the character relations. Their rendition was mind-blowing! It’s so exciting to see successful student performances on campus.
Othello Poster
I was particularly glad to have an excuse to stay inside on Saturday night because Boston experienced a surprise October snowstorm! While it’s not terribly unusual to get snow this time of year, it definitely caught everyone off guard. I, for one, don’t have any of my winter jackets on campus and spent the weekend exercising some serious layering strategy. Below is a picture of the lone snowman I found in Harvard Yard the next day – as is very characteristic of New England weather, we went from having near blizzard conditions on Saturday night to a sunny 50 degree day on Sunday. Sometimes I can’t keep up!
The Lonely Snowman