Graduate student Kathrine Iacono is a dancer and a choreographer, at least according to her bachelor’s degree. But she has another, less typical, passion that lies outside the realm of theater and within the confines of another arena: wrestling.
“I’m a little kooky about it,” Iacono said. “I love wrestling, and I don’t know if that will ever end. No matter how much of my fill I’ve gotten of it, I still don’t feel like I’ve gotten enough.”
But tonight, Iacono’s love of wrestling will combine with her artistic tendencies when she presents her master’s thesis concert, Tie Shopping with My Father, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The five-piece dance performance delves into the history and spirit of wrestling, as well as the role it has played in Iacono’s life.
“I think I’m an athlete and an artist, and there is no reason why I can’t combine those two things,” she said. “I’ve created this artistic work, but yet I absolutely love to wrestle and rip someone’s friggin’ face off. That’s fun for me, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
Iacono’s father, Richard, has been a wrestling coach in New Jersey for more than 40 years and introduced his daughter to the sport at a young age. In preparation for every year’s high school wrestling championships, he would go shopping for new ties “just so he could look new and sparkling,” Iacono said, thus inspiring the work’s title and instilling one of many memories Iacono has connecting herself, her father and wrestling.
“I just grew up in wrestling rooms, and when I got older, I somehow just got really interested in it,” Iacono said. “A large part of who I am is because of who my father is, and my father is who he is because he wrestles.”
In addition to students from the dance department, Tie Shopping with My Father will feature eight members of the university’s ACC championship-winning wrestling team. A follower of Terp wrestling since arriving at the campus nearly three years ago, Iacono introduced herself to the coaching staff and got to know the wrestlers before asking if they could help with the show.
“To see one of the major intercollegiate athletic programs that is doing quite well participate in an artistic event and working with [dance] students – I don’t think you’re going to get those together a lot,” Iacono said. “[CSPAC] is one place, and the Comcast Center is another.”
The concert, however, is not just a unique opportunity for the wrestlers involved but for the dancers, as well.
“To be working with athletes in a live, performance-art piece was something I’ve never done before,” said senior dance and English major Liz Dawson, who will be performing tonight. “They had lots of questions, and I think they really wanted to contribute a lot to the work. They were excited to have their sport seen in a different light.”
For the event, the dance department transformed CSPAC’s Kogod Theatre into a wrestling gym complete with padding on the walls and mats from the Comcast Center. One feature, however, is a bit out of place: a pair of chandeliers.
“With the chandeliers and the wrestling mat, there is this idea of dance and wrestling, and both of them existing within me,” Iacono said. “There is this irony that exists between the two, if you will, because one’s savage and one’s graceful.”
As for the performance itself, Dawson thought the concert came together smoothly, thanks largely to Iacono’s focused yet relaxed personality.
“She’s really tough and intense, but she also has a great sense of humor, which was totally evident during the entire process,” Dawson said. “It was just friends having a great time exploring something and trying to create something beautiful.”
Tie Shopping with My Father is tonight at 8 p.m. at CSPAC’s Kogod Theatre. Tickets are sold out, but spots on the e-mail standby list are available by calling the ticket office at 301-405-2787.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
