Tonight the Ohio University School of Dance presents the first of this year's senior dance concerts at The Ridges Auditorium.
Each of the six seniors in the school of dance has choreographed a dance for the concert. The dances come in two types, a solo piece or a group dance. Dancers for the groups were selected from auditions held the second week of Fall Quarter, said dance senior Meghann Slaven.
All dancers in the concert are OU dance students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, Slaven said. The dances will be in a modern dance style, because that's the emphasis here in the school of dance
said freshman Allison Steele.
Senior Ellie Munnell choreographed a solo piece for the concert entitled Telle est la Vie. The piece took eight weeks to complete and Munnell said she practices four to five hours a week in the studio and every day in my head. It is based on personal tragedies from Munnell's own life but she said she hopes audience members will identify with it.
I want people to personalize and put their own lives into my dance Munnell said. I wanted to capture the idea that this wasn't just my own this was everyone's life.
Dance seniors also produced the concert, with each senior handling a different aspect of production, Slaven, also the concert's public relations coordinator, said.
Other students in the School of Dance are working as crewmembers for the production to fulfill a requirement for dance production class, Steele said.
This year's concert is the first since OU began renovating Putnam Hall, leaving the School of Dance without a permanent practice space. The rehearsals for the senior dance concert took place this year in The Ridges Auditorium. Because of the new location, dancers, especially freshmen and sophomores without cars, had trouble getting to practices.
Munnell said practicing in a new space also required the dancers to adjust their approach to moving itself. She said she has to adjust her weight differently on the spring floor in The Ridges Auditorium than on the floor in Putnam.
It makes a difference in how we move
Munnell said. People don't realize it
but it does.
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Katie Rife
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Kathleen Turner (back) and Elizabeth Dice go through rehearsal for the Fall Senior Dance Concert, directed by seniors in the School of Dance. The students will perform at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. November 6, 7, and 8 at The Ridges Auditorium.
