Driven Jenny Rocha lives to dance BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

When a second-generation Portuguese-American teen from New Bedford encountered modern dance at Roger Williams University in the early ’90s, she was convinced that this is what she would do with the rest of her life: dance and make dances.

"It inspires me to wake up every day," says Jenny Rocha, who will bring her company, Jenny Rocha and Dancers, to the Carriage House next weekend (April 23-25) and perform a solo choreographed by her former teacher at Roger Williams, Kelli Wicke Davis. "I definitely know that this is what I’m going to do every day. It’s hard work, but it’s what I think I am meant to do. And I enjoy the aesthetic of it — what it does for me as a person."

Jenny Rocha & Dancers will present a five-part program titled Ponder Me, choreographed by Rocha, and Rocha will perform Davis’s Whisper Into the Glass, with a music-and-text score by New York-based composer/percussionist Marty Beller. Working in New York herself since 1997, Rocha has danced with Sean Curran and Heidi Latsky, both of whom she met while at Roger Williams. She started presenting her own work in 2001, has returned to Roger Williams as a guest artist, and is currently touring her repertory to Cambridge and Providence.

Ponder Me is made up of two solos, two duets, and a trio, with a through-line of survival and of "physical and emotional determination," according to Rocha, who also explained: "I’m just starting to see what my work is about. Earlier, I would have a theme and it would always turn into something else. But this time, this is what I came up with, and I’m happy it came about that way." She also describes the pieces as filled with contact partnering and "a lot of friction," by which she means a tension maintained in movements that constantly stretch out and pull back.

Following up on a 2001 piece that used eight women in large white skirts (designed by Fatima Rocha, her mother), Rocha plunged into the skirt motif again for the duet called Evenhanded. Set to music by Franz Schubert, this piece is performed by Rocha and long-time dance partner Christine Poland, company assistant and co-founder of Jenny Rocha & Dancers.

"We manipulate large dark blue skirts that are attached to our wrists," Rocha noted. "We start it off very limited, like the limitations we all deal with in our lives. Then we reverse that and make this a powerful and positive tool within us. I started off on the whole skirt thing because I thought of it as a women’s issue, representing something that had been limiting but could be turned to an advantage."

The other duet in the program is Bringing Me Down to See, also danced by Rocha and Poland, to Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies 1, 2 and 3. Rocha related that it’s about a person struggling to deal with something she doesn’t want to face. Rocha falls over and over, and Poland picks her up each time; physical contact between the two dancers is almost never lost.

"Christine is mystical," mused Rocha. "She’s there for me, but not a presence that’s earthbound, more like a guiding force, at my back a lot. By the end, I decide to go off on my own. It’s about having something behind you that makes you persevere."

Similarly, in the trio Unhindered (Poland and Rocha are joined by Shevaun Smythe), Rocha paints a picture of her mother’s invincible spirit: her adjustment to immigrating from the Azores, being called a "greenhorn," working in a factory, going from "nothing to something." Rocha conducted extensive interviews with her mother, and then a musician friend (Richard Lee) composed a score with drums and text, using her mother’s voice to tell the story in both Portuguese and English.

"There are constant patterns onstage, such as going in and then back out of windows," Rocha observed. "There’s a lot of lifting, a lot of pushing. It intensifies and becomes this tunnel effect of coming forward. The strength just keeps continuing. Two of the dancers drop out, discouraged, but the one [my mom] stays, resonating."

The two solos made by Rocha are What If, danced by Shevaun Smythe to Paganini’s 24 Caprices, and Girl, performed by Christine Poland to music by Nina Simone. Both pieces are about making decisions, the first more abstract than the second, with parts of Smythe’s body constantly pulled in one direction and then the other, be it her fingertips, her pelvis or her foot.

Girl has more concrete images, since Poland starts off in a big blond wig and pink dress, a large wind-up screw on her back. At first she moves robotically, going through the motions of vacuuming, serving, bobbing her hair, and putting lipstick on. She gradually emerges from that automaton state, however, pulling off the wig, dress and wind-up screw.

"She’s exploring, and she progresses to finding freedom," Rocha elaborated. "She strips herself down to looking very neutral, with no label to her. She goes from being funny to being introspective and feeling vulnerable. But it ends in a very positive place."

Rocha started working with Davis last summer on the solo Whisper Into the Glass. She still considers Davis a mentor: "A lot of what she has done with me is a big part of what I am as a performer and a big reason of why I dance." Davis, for her part, wanted to give Rocha "a piece that would challenge her, both technically and theatrically.

"Whisper is talking about relationships and about outside forces that affect people in different ways," Davis reflected. "I hope that the viewer can take away some emotional tension that’s crafted into it. The title comes from an Irish saying, and I thought about what if you were whispering your thoughts into a drink or a glass of wine, thinking back into your memories."

As for her former student, Davis stressed: "She’s quite a strong dancer and someone we’ll definitely hear from in the future." So, avoid those New York ticket prices and catch her in Rhode Island.

Jenny Rocha and Dancers will perform Friday through Sunday, April 23 through 25 at 8 p.m. at the Carriage House, 7 Duncan Avenue, Providence. Tickets are $15. Call (401) 831-9479.