Students in the Division of Dance will perform one of their most anticipated performances of the year in MemAud on Friday and Saturday.
For the Winter Dance Concert, the student dancers will perform in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, a larger venue than they are accustomed to, making the concert one of the most formal dances for the Division of Dance.
The concert will be performed at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday.
“This show is mostly for our professors and the guest artists to showcase their work and their creativity and also to give us an opportunity to perform on a more formal level, a more formal venue,” Corrinne Bailey, a junior studying dance, said.
Bailey is performing in the piece titled After Monk in Five Parts, directed by Ani Javian, a visiting assistant professor of dance. It is one of the six pieces that make up the entirety of the concert.
The concert consists of six separate pieces of original choreographed works by dance faculty members and also visiting artists.
Visiting guest artists include American choreographer Kyle Abraham, the owner of the Abraham.In.Motion dance company, Anna Sullivan from the San Francisco-based multimedia dance theater company Anna and the Annadroids, and Lisa Ford Moulton, formerly a member of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City. Moulton has also worked with the Loose Gravel Dance Company and Contemporary Danceworks. In 1995, Moulton joined the Ohio University faculty.
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“The pieces don’t connect. They are very much distinct from one another,” Bailey said. “The audience will have something new to watch and think about with every single piece.”
Like many others in the concert, Bailey is not only dancing but also a part of the production crew by helping with lighting cues and other backstage tasks.
The production has been in the works since November.
“We actually had a week straight of 5 (p.m.) to 10 p.m. rehearsals … a really long hell-week but it was worth it because it’s a really beautiful piece,” Olivia Cancelli, a junior studying dance, said. “I love show week. It’s really busy, and we all complain the whole time about how much there is to do, but by the time we’re on stage, we just forget about the drama and how nervous we are. It’s just really, really fun.”
Cancelli is another dancer in the same piece Bailey will be performing in, but she is also performing in a piece directed by guest artist Abraham.
Each piece is directed by a different faculty member or guest artist, making each work distinct.
“There is a piece by Lisa Moulton that is quite literally about superheroes,” Cancelli said. “They even change on stage into super hero costumes. It’s a pretty fun piece.”
Running Shoes, a piece by guest artist Sullivan, is one that Cancelli said she is particularly excited about because of the very theatrical nature Sullivan has with her makeup and choreography.
Costumes also vary greatly between pieces. Each director’s style came through in the outfit choices for each piece.
“There is great diversity between the dancers, so the costumes will also be very diverse. They’re mostly more modern, more pedestrian,” Cancelli said.
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