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The John J. Cali School of Music’s Artist-in-Residence, Leyla McCalla, recently joined students from Professor Stefanie Batten Bland’s Theatre in Motion class for a unique creative exchange blending live music and dance.

The class began with a guided warmup as Batten Bland prompted the students to explore movement through various emotional and physical states, such as moving slowly, moving urgently, embodying the perfect body, employing elements of seduction, and finally, suspicion. Once the dancers became ‘suspicious’ of one another, the movement transitioned into departure, breaking away, and ending with a dance solo. For this special session, dancers layered more additional clothing than usual to help convey story and character.

After the warmups, McCalla joined the group, performing live as the students composed original choreography to three of her songs.

The first piece, “East End Elegy,” served as an emotional foundation.

“This song should portray systemic and generational grief, with centuries-old pain. There is so much fatigue in this grief. The song was inspired by a cemetery, and it is a love letter to the people who are buried there—over 16,000 people—as well as to their descendants, who may still struggle with the effects of capitalism and racism in this physical space.”

–Leyla McCalla

As the music unfolded, Batten Bland encouraged the dancers to experiment with gesture and presence; “You can make a portrait,” she told them, adding, “Bring in highs and lows, make the sound of an inhale, or the sound of finding another person in the space.”

The second song, “Weep,” introduced props such as a mattress bed and a boudoir table to expand the dancers’ storytelling. After multiple takes, Batten Bland reflected on the work, saying, “This movement unpacks into incomprehensible dream space, and then rubber bands us back to reality. It’s beautiful.”

The final piece, “Dodinin,” carried a different energy. The title, which means “rocking,” is a double entendre, evoking both the motion of a rocking chair on a plantation porch and the idea of being rocked out of one’s comfort zone. With its faster tempo and rhythmic intensity, the piece captured McCalla’s ongoing exploration of themes like immigrant displacement, revolution, and history.

Through this collaboration, music and movement became inseparable, with each influencing and reshaping the other. For the students, the session offered a rare opportunity to engage directly with a professional artist’s creative process, deepening their understanding of how live performance can express shared histories and emotional truths.

Story by Web and Digital Media Manager Alexandra Thelin Blackowski