Choreographer Messina brings science to dance and New York to Atlanta

On March 21-22, she and Rogue Wave will present Messina’s most recent full-length work ”Bouquet” as part of the 2024 Atlanta Science Festival.

Credit: Demetrius Green

Credit: Demetrius Green

The event is a good fit for both choreographer and company. In an interview with ArtsATL, Messina described Rogue Wave as creating at the intersection of science and dance, using movement to explore and explain scientific concepts for a broader audience.

Messina completed a master of science in developmental psychology at Columbia University and now works as a child life specialist in outpatient pediatrics at New York’s Bellevue Hospital. In addition to dancing and creating regularly with Rogue Wave, she helps children and families deal with serious and chronic illness and navigate the complex medical and emotional issues involved.

Messina’s graduate work inspired “Bouquet,” a 40-minute contemporary dance about epigenetics — the science of how environment and life circumstances influence the expression of genes, affecting everything from the onset of puberty to the development of cancer or autoimmune disease. Messina began the process for “Bouquet” by studying an analytical framework proposed and popularized by Dr. Thomas Boyce in his book “The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive.”

In a series of laboratory tests, Boyce and his team classified children as “dandelions” or “orchids,” depending on their biological and emotional responses to mild stressors. According to Boyce, this research demonstrated that most children are resilient dandelions, able to flourish in almost any environment, but a minority are orchids who need a nurturing, more accommodating environment to reach their full potential. Subsequent research has added “tulips,” who are in between the two.

During the creation of “Bouquet,” Messina and the other Rogue Wave dancers asked themselves whether they fit into these categories and how different flowers contribute to the “meadow” of humanity. As with all good research projects, they documented and discussed their work, keeping journals and bringing their reflections back into the studio when they rehearsed.

The result, Messina said, is a piece in which the dancers personify the three personality types and how they interact with and respond to each other and their environment. Through partnering and signature solos, the dancers also press against the potential limitations of the flower types as a vocabulary for explaining the range of human neurodiversity.

Credit: Demetrius Green

Credit: Demetrius Green

The threads of intellectual curiosity and resistance to classification in “Bouquet” weave together the tapestry of Messina’s career thus far. The dancer-choreographer hopes the budding dancers and scientists who see “Bouquet” will be able to envision a career path that does not require an either-or decision. “You don’t have to pick dance or the other thing. You can be a scientist and an artist.”

That both-and mentality, what Messina called a “philosophy of abundance,” is what she wants to import to the Atlanta dance scene from New York, where she has performed in a local coffee shop and on a small nightclub stage as part of a lineup that included stand-up comedians and musical artists. The annual dance festivals she organizes, Fall for Fall in Atlanta and the peripatetic Spring for Spring, take place in public outdoor venues such as town squares, parks and church parking lots, as well as more traditional settings.

The lesson Messina has learned in New York is that dance can happen anywhere. “I look around Atlanta, and I see so much space that could be activated by dance,” she said.

In Atlanta, Messina said, she returns to the tight-knit and supportive community where she can easily find someone to help with flooring, lights, costumes or whatever she might need. The New York artists Messina invites to Fall for Fall benefit from that safety net. When she brings Atlanta artists to New York, she provides them with an opportunity to extend their network into another city and create a New York foothold for themselves and their connections back home.

Similarly, Messina encourages Atlanta dancers and choreographers to think creatively about how to expand into fields beyond dance. Because of the collaborative nature of dance and the performing arts more broadly, one choreographer’s success in obtaining funding from a previously untapped source creates new opportunities for the dancers and production professionals involved in the show.

Credit: Demetrius Green

Credit: Demetrius Green

For example, Messina leveraged her history helping to organize and run the Atlanta Science Festival, along with Rogue Wave’s interdisciplinary appeal, into a grant from the festival’s organizers to pay for the company’s travel and upcoming performance. The two international dancers in Rogue Wave, one from Brazil the other from Japan, have never been to Atlanta. Another who is from Georgia originally will perform “Bouquet” for an audience that includes her parents for the first time.

The Atlanta Science Festival’s decision to include dance artists in its programming taps into a recent surge of interest in movement-based arts within the scientific community, particularly in robotics and human-computer interaction. For 16 years, the Dance Your Ph.D. contest organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science has spawned a library of meme-able videos featuring dance about everything from metal-organic frameworks to the effects of climate change on the Amazon rain forest.

In just the last few years, however, direct collaboration among scientists and dancers has produced books, podcasts and multinational academic consortia dedicated to explaining how dance can contribute to making better robots and user interfaces.

The Atlanta Science Festival runs through March 23 in venues throughout the city. Rogue Wave’s performance of “Bouquet” at Drew Charter High School’s auditorium is part of the final week of programming, which will culminate in the 2024 Exploration Expo in Piedmont Park.

DANCE PREVIEW

Rogue Wave performing Catherine Messina’s “Bouquet”

8 p.m. March 21 and 7 pm. March 22, part of Atlanta Science Festival. $15. Drew Charter High School’s Yates Campus, 300 Eva Davis Way, Atlanta. 770-322-4992, atlantasciencefestival.org/events-2024/

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Robin Wharton studied dance at the School of American Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet School. As an undergraduate at Tulane University in New Orleans, she was a member of the Newcomb Dance Company. In addition to a bachelor of arts in English from Tulane, Robin holds a law degree and a Ph.D. in English, both from the University of Georgia.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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