Department of Dance

Evelyn Toh Paoli

Visiting Professor of Dance - Sam Houston State University
MFA in Dance - Sam Houston State University
BFA in Dance - The Boston Conservatory

Evelyn Toh is a dance artist, teacher, and choreographer, based in Houston, TX. She obtained her MFA in Dance from Sam Houston State University and graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in Dance from The Boston Conservatory under Singapore’s prestigious National Arts Council Overseas Scholarship. Evelyn is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Sam Houston State University and a company member of NobleMotion Dance, where she also serves as the Assistant Director of Programming.

As a dance artist, Evelyn has had the pleasure of performing with companies such as John Mead Dance Company (Singapore), Ballet Rox, Nimbus Dance Works, Transitory Sound and Movement Collective, Joshua Manculich’s Whirlwind, MOMIX, and T.H.E Dance Company (Singapore). While with MOMIX, she originated roles within Alchemy, touring extensively to countries such as Italy, Brazil, Spain, and Switzerland. Upon joining T.H.E Dance Company, a leading contemporary dance company in Singapore, she had the privilege of performing in multiple productions and festivals throughout Asia. Her choreographic work has been presented at venues such as Barnstorm Dance Festival (TX), T.H.E Dance Company’s New Vision (Singapore), ACDA South-Central Gala, Boston Contemporary Dance Festival (MA), and Dance Gallery Festival (TX and NY). 

Thus, She is Whole..., by Evelyn Toh

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Variance

Presented by Senior Studio
Fall 2021
Nov 4-6, 2021 @ 8 PM

Sam Houston State University is proud to present Variance, an inspiring exhibition of 12 choreographic dance works presented by members of the senior dance class. Enjoy the return of live dance performance at the James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center Dance Theater from November 4-6, 2021, at 8 pm. Variance features the debut of a new generation of choreographic talent, unfolding an eclectic array of imaginative artistic vision: uncovering elements of creature-like expression, sentimental gesture, romantic dramatization, and more.

Highlights from the show include:

The enduring responsibilities of adulthood. Good Grief by Abby Schafer is a quirky and comical rendition of the adolescent experience. The performance features nostalgic inspiration from Charles Schulz’s The Peanuts as well as 1950’s pop music. In a surprising blend of tension and whimsy, Schafer encourages audience members to identify the unspoken emotional boundaries of society.

While grappling with the seemingly constant waves of overwhelming stimuli, how do you find calmness in your average day? Prevailing Tides, by Peyton Nichols, transports the audience into an abstract exploration of serenity. The dancers embody the restorative qualities found and often overlooked in seemingly mundane events. When one acts with mindfulness and patience, beauty and tranquility is everywhere.

Entertaining, Fun, Refreshing! Live in concert by Reagan Crandall transports audiences into the exhilarating experience of a live rock concert. Watch in awe as four phenomenal dancers challenge their physical limits and musicality. Inspired by the Queen song, “Somebody to Love,” Crandall is excited to make her choreographic debut with this energetic and high-paced work.

What comes next? Twenty-Five by Rachel Redding is a coming-of-age piece that examines and questions the roles women are expected to juggle in society. “This piece is very personal,” says Redding, “I’m not sure what womanhood and adulthood will look like for me once I leave SHSU, so this work was my way of poking fun at the stereotypical expectations of the next phase of my life.”

Take a deep breath and release. All Earthly Folly by Sarabeth Armstrong is a prayer, meditation, praise, and escape. The physical experience of a prayerful or meditative state informs this choreographic work as it aims to demonstrate the nature surrounding these powerful experiences. With her dancers, Armstrong takes a closer look at how we find release individually and collectively.

Moving and symphonic. Ceaseless by Katelyn Perez delves into the complex layers of Philip Glass’s most popular concerto, “Violin Concerto No. 1 Movement II”. Join the dancers as they enter a whirling universe of passionate and never-ending harmonies, evolving into a living embodiment of this masterpiece concerto.

Celebration! Les funérailles du jazz by Kaylah Alexander transports audiences to New Orleans, Louisiana, to celebrate the dead. Through a traditional funeral procession into a second-line celebration, Alexander wants the audience to experience the heart of New Orleans. With the use of umbrellas, handkerchiefs, footwork, and groove, Les funérailles du jazz brings the essence of New Orleans to life on stage.

“Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.” Despondency by Angelique M. Flores explores the tragic story of the 16th-century play “Doctor Faustus” created by Christopher Marlow. Flores captures this story through intricate movements and ominous music. Influenced by the story’s haunting ending, this dance work encourages the audience to ponder, “why does misery love company?”

Mind-boggling. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide by Ve Moreno explores what can happen if you take just too much. With a hint of surrealism, idiosyncratic movement, and distinctive music, this dance piece will surely take you on a mental ride. Audiences are invited to giggle at the oddities of work as they are transported into a different reality.

“Eyes look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, oh you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss, a dateless bargain to engrossing death.”  (William Shakespeare).  More Than a Memory by Bernard M. Jones is a dance that explores the complexity of grief, love, and the double-mindedness of blame. Join him and the dancers as they lead us through a personal journey of loss and tribulation enveloped in the grief of three lost pregnancies. 

Concave…(Working title), choreographed by Michelle Maldonado calls attention to a journey that many people experience in their daily lives: anxiety and depression. As the dancers manipulate a simple T-shirt, Maldonado demonstrates the unique connection and impact of fighting within oneself.

Tick tock, tick-tock. Time is fleeting and waits for no one. Wait by Kara Hammond, explores the concept of time measured by change and motion. Hammond was inspired by her perception of time throughout college, noting that time seemed to pass by more quickly as her career in college progressed. Through Wait, Hammond invites the audience to experience time as a fourth dimension where a familiar reality is ultimately timeless.

DETAILS:

Variance
James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center, Dance Theater
815 17th Street Huntsville, TX 77340
November 4-6, 2021 @ 8pm
Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day of show
Tickets can be purchases online at www.shsu.edu/boxoffice

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Dance Spectrum in Concert
Fall 2021
Nov 18-20, 2021

The Sam Houston State University Department of Dance will present an evening of dance works by faculty, guest artists and invited graduate students the weekend before Thanksgiving in the GPAC Dance Theater. Highlights from this concert include dance faculty works by Joshua Manculich, Andy Noble and Dionne Sparkman Noble, visiting professor Evelyn Toh and a collaborative work from visiting professor Adele Nickel and guest artist Alethea Alexander. To round out the evening, a series of solos performed and choreographed by three graduate students Jacob Regan, Lilly Thurman and Zihao (Jeremy) Yuan are invited onto the program. Come join us for an exhilarating evening of contemporary dance!

About the Dances
The concert opens with a mesmerizing dance work by Adele Nickel and Alethea Alexander for nine dancers and eight 10-foot poles. Nickel and Alexander (a Seattle-based dance artist and educator) have worked together for some time to match movement with unwieldy, unfamiliar objects as a method for learning more about objects-as-bodies and bodies as objects. For Dance Spectrum they created Natural Selection, which was inspired by the eusocial structures of ant colonies, where members practice altruism and cooperation and defer individual “fitness” and dominance in favor of group survival and the success of the colony. This dance work draws on the imagery of forests, fields, and nests to bring the organic and the inorganic into conversation.

Andy Noble brings to the stage Rhythm Study, a new work for fifteen dancers in three sections. This highly energetic dance goes into rhythmic overdrive leaving dancers breathless and fatigued. Combining contemporary movement, tap, and vocalized breathing, the dance showcases the physical prowess and technical range that SHSU’s dancers bring to the table. This work will also be shown in January 2022 at The MATCH in downtown Houston in an evening of live music and dance with Musiqa, a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. 

The Watering Hole is a new quartet by Dionne Sparkman Noble that is performed to a captivating score by composer Michael Wall. On a microlevel, this tension-filled dance considers how a small band of people, like say in an office suite, might dynamically work with or against one another to accomplish tasks. It also ponders what happens when the workload becomes too overwhelming. Wall’s music in meaning and tone fits well with the dance as it is a richly composed score that includes text spoken in Zulu. When Sparkman Noble asked Wall what is being communicated in the text he replied, “I made this piece almost 20 years ago with my friend Lucky, who is a choreographer from South Africa. He had visited several prisons in South Africa and did interviews with inmates about the living conditions in the prisons. I believe in the text I used the men are talking about how bad the water is.” Sparkman Noble is honored to work with this score in this context.

Visiting professor Evelyn Toh presents a group work for eleven dancers entitled To Gather. Inspired by how society is a specialized conglomerate of human beings, Toh states, “I wanted to explore how a group of individuals are able to come together as a whole yet maintain their distinctiveness.” In this work, beauty emerges from the diversity of movement presented by each dancer and at the same time even greater beauty and strength surfaces when those differences intertwine to create a whole.

After seeing their work in the Masters of Dance concert earlier this semester, the faculty invited graduate choreographers Jacob Regan, Lilly Thurman, and Zihao (Jeremy) Yuan to represent their work in Dance Spectrum. All of our hours are ours is a series of three separate, pre-existing, self-choreographed solos combined into one flowing container. Presenting one right after the other allows for the gifts of each soloist to shine and also provides opportunity to recognize the expressive commonalities that these soloists share as well.  

Closing the evening with a bang is Josh Manculich’s My Way featuring a large, sparkling cast and a whole lot of pizazz! My Way celebrates the endless multitude of options concerning how one might live a life. Thirty-four dancers find themselves earnestly en route to a location so often passed over – the present moment. Set to the vocal stylings of Nina Simone, Manculich hopes to serve a heaping helping of soulful movement to the Spectrum.

DETAILS

Dance Spectrum in Concert
November 18-20, 2021 @ 8 PM
James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center, Dance Theater
815 17^thStreet, Huntsville, TX
Tickets: $12 advance general admission, $15 at the door, student RUSH available week of the show (one free ticket) for current SHSU students with valid SHSU student ID. 
Purchase online at http://www.shsutickets.com or call 936-294-2339

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