A dream for most School of Dance students is to perform under a professional company, and for 12 Ohio University dancers, that dream is about to become a reality.
Wednesday night, the students will take the stage for a piece called “The Nothing That Is Not There and The Nothing That Is” during the Seán Curran Company performance in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium.
The 12 students auditioned for Curran when he came to OU as a visiting artist for classes in the School of Dance at the start of Fall Quarter.
They performed the piece as a group of 24 for the winter concert, and the 12 students who will perform on Wednesday have since been practicing under the direction of Travis Gatling, the associate director for the School of Dance.
“(Curran’s) tension and passion for dance is breathtaking,” said Megan Nicklos, the arts administration intern for the School of Dance and a senior studying dance. “He has such a care for what he does.”
Giving the students an opportunity to work with a versatile and renowned choreographer is something that the School of Dance is proud to be a part of, Gatling said.
Since 1997, the Seán Curran Company has been stunning audiences all over the world with various pieces choreographed in Curran’s style.
“I like to take two different styles of dance and create a hybrid of sorts,” Curran said. “I try to create something new so the audience is always surprised.”
Curran uses this hybrid mentality in “Metal Garden,” the number that starts the show.
The company is also performing two other pieces, “Hard Bargain” and “Social Discourse,” both of which differ in music and style, Curran said.
“The audience should approach the evening as if they were reading a book of short stories,” he said. “Each one is different even though it’s by the same author.”
The Performing Arts Concert Series works with the School of Dance to try to bring in a dance company at least every other year, said Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of the Campus Involvement Center.
It cost $11,500 to bring Curran’s company in, said Holzaepfel. Included in the cost are master’s classes being taught by Curran during his visit.
ao007510@ohiou.edu
