CIE performance explores blissful ignorance
Dancers illustrate people’s struggle with the comfort of conformity versus their contempt for it.
Edwards Center for Inclusive Excellence (CIE) drew a full audience with “Unquestioned; A half hour dance concert” on Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Edwards Theatre.
Created and directed by Teryn Cuozzo, “Unquestioned” explored themes of blissful ignorance and unquestioned belief. Inspired by Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex,” she strived to metaphorically push “blind faith” to the extreme.
Cuozzo has been a research fellow with the CIE since her freshman year and studied what data performance looked like. Cuozzo has since assisted with professors’ projects. For her junior year, she said she wanted to take the reins herself.
She began her research in the beginning of the fall semester, and rehearsals took place within the past month.
“I feel really proud of the work that we did. We were able to put together 30 minutes of movement and we had four weeks of rehearsal,” Cuozzo said. “We were able to do it as a group and facilitate this big event and have so many people come. I’m proud of the work we did tonight.”
The performance featured dancers donned in black attire, and all except for one wore masquerade eye masks. The dancers reflected humanity’s herdmentality while a lone maskless girl represented someone who questioned perceived truth. The narrator and maskless girl, played by Kiree Carlson, used the freedom of being maskless to probe into the story behind each of the portraits.
“Even though it’s an extreme of the world we live in, I think it’s very relatable.” Carlson said.
Through “Unquestioned,” Cuozzo emphasized the negative impact herd mentality inflicts upon women specifically, according to the director’s note. She said this is because it is more convenient to push minority voices aside.
Audience members resonated with the message as well. Student Cody Lewandowski said the message of conformity is important in today’s world.
“People will just follow, and it takes one person to really change everything,” Lewandowski said. “It was beautiful what Teryn put on.”
