On October 25, 2013, I attended the UT Dallas Dance Ensemble's Contemporary Dance show at the University Theatre. The work that I found unique was the dance "Two" performed/ choreographed by Courtney Mulcahy. "Two" was a dance that was somewhat dark in nature. The performer used a bench during the dance that she stood upon to make different positions every time the light flickered. The music that complemented the dance wasn't exactly music either. It was more like sounds of different things in nature put together to create music. The work, "Two", performed by Courtney Mulcahy, revealed a psychological disorder through the use of a dark nature, such as a dark lighting, dark music, and a dark costume. .
The creator of this work, Courtney Mulcahy, tried to reveal a psychological disorder, possibly schizophrenia, through the moves of her dance. The expressions on her face during the dance showed fear in her eyes. It was almost as if the audience was taking a look into her head of what she was visualizing and hallucinating about. The dance started off with a pitch-black background. All of the lights were turned off. When the music started, it was dramatically eerie. The stage lights flickered every five seconds, and the dancer was in a different position every single time; she was either standing up having her back face the audience and slowly turning her head to look at the audience, curling up on the bench in a fetal position, or having her head in between her legs while squatting on the bench. To me, each position represented the fear and the curiosity a schizophrenic has. The dim lighting along with one spotlight on the dancer of the stage allowed the audience to focus only on the dancer. This mimicked the feeling of how usually a schizophrenic feels like he or she is being watched all the time even though they are just hallucinations. The flickering of the lights also created somewhat of fear in the audience.
