Stepping into a once familiar world with GO! Contemporary Dance Works
I hadn’t stepped into the Bijou Theatre since my senior show with my dance company in February of 2021. I expected for it to feel much more uncomfortable, like trying on old clothes just to find that they don’t fit as well anymore. But, to my surprise, I felt the most at home I had in years.
I made a weekend trip home to Knoxville from my college up in Oxford, Ohio one weekend in February to see GO! Contemporary Dance Works’s ALICE: A Revolutionary Ballet with my mom. I had been in the show back in high school, and, while I loved many of the shows I had been in with GO!, Alice held a special place in my heart.
It was surreal watching the show onstage, almost like watching past versions of myself performing in front of me. I could feel my mom playfully nudging me throughout the dances, whispering, “You were in that one!”
Micah McKee, GO! alum and this year’s lead role of Alice, is a close friend that I grew up dancing alongside. This was her second role returning to dance with the dance company, but this show seemed to mean so much more to her.
“I feel like, particularly with Alice, it was a super full circle moment because I had played the part of the Queen of Hearts in high school,” Micah told me. “Returning in the role that Harper Addison [who formerly held the role] did…she was everything that we all wanted to be. I remember watching her and just feeling this intense yearning to just be that.”
I was mid-show surprised to see that another GO! alum and close friend, Kara Anderson, had returned to perform in the show, as well. It felt like deja vu watching them both retake the stage.
“It’s hard to explain the sense of comfort I felt taking the familiar stage at the Bijou again after all these years,” Kara told me after the show. “In some ways, it felt like no time had passed, and I was a teenager all over again, but in other ways, I was seeing it all in such a new light.”
I would like to say that I was aware how deeply GO! was tied to me, but I don’t think I truly understood until watching Alice. And the entire time I felt I could perform the show perfectly from memory. It seems I wasn’t alone. Artistic Director Lisa Hall McKee reassured me after the show that she was sure my cast could’ve still done it – the movement will never leave our bodies.
Being part of dance company was more about the dances we learned, the roles we played (or reprised), these types of experiences in Knoxville allow their participants to build relationships with people in our community. Despite not seeing these former fellow dancers or the company itself in years, I still felt the same sense of belonging that I had when I was 12.
“GO! shaped me in every way as a person and as a dancer, so being able to return to that space and to that show as an adult was wild,” Micah says. “I felt that same sense of belonging, but it was from the other side, of adulthood instead of childhood. It felt like returning home for me.”
While GO!’s biggest show of the year is over, the dancers are far from done. Studio Arts for Dancers, where the company is based out of, will have their end of the year studio show this upcoming May. Dancers both in and out of the company can continue to take various intensives throughout the summer as well.
As for GO!, next year’s season typically kicks off with rehearsals in August for their fall show. The company usually has three big performances throughout the year: one in the fall, one in December alongside the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra for the holidays, and one in February. Those interested in following the work of GO! or learning more can head to gocontemporarydance.com.
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