Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Battle Creek series.

KALAMAZOO, MI — Just go and describe what you see, is what editors have told me.

But I don't know modern dance, I'd reply. 

So:

Saturday night, March 1, we're watching small robots dance with people. A graceful human dancer is moving about on the floor, then "SQUWEE SQUWEE SWQWEE click click click click," a small spider bot on many legs comes clicking out to her, to awkwardly move with her, and she with it.

Their dance leads to other pairings. Humans move with a train/snake on wheels, a shaky glitterbot (a vibrating bot in a glitter-covered cloak), a spinning wheeled robot wearing a veil. 

Courtesy: Ashley DeranPenelope Freeh's "White Zinnia" Humans move with grace, or in jerks, in response to the mechanical movements. Robots try to mimic humans. The music is interrupted by the abrasive sounds of the actual 3D printer that printed the robots' parts.

These robots -- they really aren't good dancers. They seem to interrupt, to intrude on the humans. Are they supposed to connect with the audience in some way?

One rolls out, with two bulbous, hairy parts on its front. Are those big, round parts supposed to represent parts found on humans? I hate to imagine what...

The bulbs rise up on stalks, and, "CLICK," open into big eyes, with big eyelashes. Many gasps and awws come from the audience. The eyes focus on the bot's partner, blinking its big lashes.

The rad choreography of Wellspring’s RADFest

The robots were part of a piece titled "Since we have come this far, how do we get back?" It was a statement on AI, a collaboration between choreographer Stephanie Miracle, and assistant professor of mechanical engineering Deema Totah, both of the University of Iowa. 

"Since we..." was showcased in the fest’s Alternative Space, the Jolliffe Theatre in the Epic Center. We followed that by moving to the "Short Works Encore Performance" at the Wellspring's Cori Terry Theatre, also in the Epic, where seven pieces — selected from throughout the festival for an "encore" — equally challenged, delighted and intrigued the audience.

This was night three of the four-day Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival, or RADFest, Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers' 16th annual festival of movement. 

“Walking around the Earth”

For over 36 years, Wellspring has been celebrating movement in Kalamazoo.

The state of the company in 2025 is strong, Executive Director Kate Yancho says. "I'm feeling a greater reach into the community, and by community I mean the Kalamazoo community and also into our dance community....  I think people are excited about new."

Marisa Bianan, Wellspring choreographer/dancer and now the company's Artistic Director says they're "continuing on with the history of collaboration that the organization has put forward, but...  moving forward with some different experiments — 'experiments' sounds weird."

She promises, "We're not conducting experiments on Southwest Michigan! But we're trying different ways of encouraging people of all ages to move."

Wellspring would like to bring modern, contemporary dance into new spaces in Kalamazoo, areas, Bianan says, "that might be missing the beauty of modern dance."

Courtesy: Ashley DeranPenelope Freeh's "White Zinnia" It's a subject "I'm really passionate about, because modern dance isn't that far away from walking around the Earth."

Walking the Earth seems easy, but contemporary dance may be intimidating for some. It is for me, who has to put it all in words. 

I vividly remember being told to cover one of the early RADfests as a freelance A&E reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette.

I emailed my editor then, "Uh, I don't really know modern dance?"

"Just go and describe what you see," she ordered.

This year I had the same reaction when Second Wave asked me to write about RADFest.

I knew it would be interesting, entertaining, and have that special thrill of seeing something unexpected. 

But what is this style, what was that style? I can recognize urban breakin' moves from popular culture, as seen in one piece, but then there were dance styles that may not even have labels since the point of this festival is about the new, the groundbreaking.

So I invited Yancho, Biannan, and RADFest curator Jennifer Glaws to an online meeting, to help walk me through what I saw.

All the pieces of RADFest were chosen as "contemporary works that kind of push the ideas," Glaws, an educator, choreographer and dancer, says from her office in Aurora, Colorado. 

"They're movement pieces that push the boundaries of what we know about movement and the ideas of the genre," Glaws says. "I don't think of contemporary dance as necessarily a category, but more of a way to think of how movement is explored, and explored in a contemporary way."

What stuck out to me on the Saturday I attended RADFest were the pieces that seemed to tell a story.

White Zinnia

Like Penelope Freeh's "White Zinnia,” with the dancer/choreographer as her mother, coming out of a painting's frame with flowers on her head and a white zinnia in her mouth. She flows about the room, until an incessant knocking comes out of the music. 

Courtesy: Ashley DeranPenelope Freeh's "White Zinnia" We hear an answering machine recording of Freeh's actual mother, voice weary, saying that some "a--hole" had been knocking at her door all day. More peaceful dancing is interrupted by a pizza delivery. All efforts at art, beauty and overall peacefulness are ruined by distraction. She pretend-stabs herself with a rubber knife, then pours a cocktail. It closes with Waylon Jennings' weary, bittersweet, "Amanda" —  "Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife" — playing from a pile of rags. She stands, drags the rags now attached to her, the old country song literally playing from the pile.

Rock, Paper. . .

There was "Rock, Paper..." by Joshua and Emily Culbreath. They portrayed dancers in a modified, and very playful, street competition, taking breaking moves and other pop dance styles to new levels. 

Love Thy Enemy

"Love Thy Enemy," by choreographer Peter Sparling and dancers Ben Cheney and Yali Rivlin, had two armed male soldiers separated by barbed wire, looking as if they were going to battle, but then engage in a dance of love.

Movement, no story

These were dance pieces that stated something, that showed relatable characters, that told stories. They're easy to put into words. 

I see in my notes for others, "movement, no story." Meaning, they were abstract movement, showing the pure artistry of the human form. With no story, I fear I’m watching the dance like a dog watches TV.

Entwination

What was "Entwination" saying? The piece, by choreographers Stacy Flood-Popp and Calin Manning, had four dancers working together in unison, to unusual music. They locked onto each other in unusual manners, clutching at ankles, dragging themselves about. There were moods wavering between playfulness and anxiety. There was nothing horrific in it, but "body horror" is in my notes, since moments of it seemed to reflect the extreme awareness of the body and its twisted weirdness found in movies like "The Substance." 

"So, that piece was a complicated physical exploration of partnership, connection, and sharing weight," Glaws says of "Entwination."

"I would love to add that it also had a really strong showcase of risk and trust in dance and in partnering," Bianan says. 

"White Zinnia" was clearly a "heartfelt story.... innovative in prop use and set design," Glaws says.

Set

But "Set," by Milwaukee choreographer Dan Schuchart, which followed, had no props, music or recorded sound. "It only had the sound of their bodies," Glaws says. "And the sound of their physical beings moving through space. And that was really contemporary in the way that the sound score was their bodies and was the rhythmic action between them."

Bianna adds, "There were also comedic elements where the dancers were using the sweat of their feet on the floor to create squeaking or other noises that we sometimes make on accident, but then accentuating that in a way and then expressing and exploring that farther. Definitely a little hint of youthful vibrancy in that work too. That reminder of play and curiosity was really alive in that work for me."

Courtesy: Ashley Deran"Set" by Milwaukee choreographer Dan Schuchart"I think in a field where music can sometimes dominate and guide where dance goes, it was really refreshing to see such a full piece without the need of a particular score," Glaws says. "I think a lot of times music can drown out dance."

That was pure dance — for me, maybe the music, or set, or novelty of robots, or a story, draws my attention. 

Or old memories of the '80s and MTV that made "Rock, Paper" feel familiar. 

The dancers in that "spoke to the language of breaking and locking, that communal aspect of challenging one another and the play that comes with it," Bianan says. The piece was "a strong demonstration of the energy that lives in those dance environments, but then lifted up in a very concert-dance, slightly abstracted way, but still very palatable and encouraging and engaging."

It connected with the young dancers in the audience — sitting in the front row, floor-level, were the college dancers of Iowa who performed with the robots in "Since We...." They could barely contain their excitement during that and other pieces in the "Encore" set. It's not often in, say, chamber music, that audience members emit a "WOO!" after a tricky part.

It should be noted that RADFest is a rare chance to see contemporary dance live. In the presence of live movement, of dancers taking risks, physical and artistic on the floor, a couple yards away, one can feel the energy and excitement.

Reconstruct

"Reconstruct," from the Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater of Houston, Texas, matched the movements of five dancers to Terry Riley's "G Song." It united complicated movements to evolving musical concepts.

"It was a piece that was so tightly connected to the music, just so absolutely musically accurate with their movement vocabulary, that I think that really pushed the idea of contemporary movement," Glaws says.

Courtesy: Emily McKeeMarisa BiananBianan noted the "awesome stamina" of the group. "The dancers had such a strong embodiment and a very clear drive that was coming from the pulse of the music that it was hard as an audience member to not want to be in that same driving state to give them more."

Bianan says she had to keep herself from joining them during the performance. "I was sitting in my seat, I was like, 'Oh, I want to try that jump!'"

Current conversations through dance

Along with the pure movement at RADFest, there are the "current, relevant conversations," Glaws says, that a festival of contemporary dance needs to include. 

Love They Enemy

"Love Thy Enemy" was "one of the highest adjudicated works because of the content and the narrative and the bravery," she says. 

Courtesy: Russell Cooper"Love Thy Enemy" by choreographer Peter SparlingSoldiers at war, "two males dancing together, two very masculine males dancing together with that sensitivity, with that subject matter and all of those complexities -- just a really daring and brave work," Glaws says.

Its' ending, one soldier standing guard over his former enemy, not as a prisoner but someone he’s protecting, moved Bianan to tears. "That idea of just what it means to be in war and what it means to be a human in that environment — it's very gut-wrenching."

The commentary in "Since we have come this far how do we get back?" was on AI technology intruding on/contributing to art. Comedic, unusual and even "cute" — Glaws and Biannan reveal that its big-eyed bot star was named Blinky. 

But that piece was all human, Bianan says. "Even though you are seeing dancers and robots on stage, it's still human-to-human interaction because the robot is remote controlled by an artist, by a human in that room." 

Back to her statement that we're all just humans moving about on the Earth, Bianan says, the dancers are presenting a complex art, but it shouldn't be that intimidating for viewers.

"Obviously we're jumping and rolling and doing things like that," she says. "But a lot of it is in this way of, ‘See these humans expressing human connection, or connection in general, and being inspired by that movement.’"