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Dance professor brings "branch dancing" to Wissahickon Park

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Chestnut Hill Local

Boyer dance professor Merián Soto's current production revisits the site of her 2007-08 One-Year Wissahickon Park Project. Using her "branch dancing" technique, dancers incorporate the landscape and use fallen branches during a sequence of slow movements as a way to connect to the environment. Performances take place in Wissahickon Park, rain, snow or shine. "If the audience is willing to slow down [like the dancers], they are able to enter into a state of reflection and reverie. I think this opens a window for the audience to see nature in a different way," said Soto, an award-winning choreographer and six-time National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient.