The Ohio University School of Dance is holding a Winter Dance Concert Friday and Saturday evenings at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium.
The dancers are all undergraduate students of the OU School of Dance, and there will be five pieces to the concert which are choreographed by both faculty and guest artists.
The guest artists presenting include OU alumnus and former Dayton Contemporary Dance Company member Trezon Dancy and New York-based choreographer Alexandra Beller.
Other choreographers presenting original work include school of dance faculty, including Assistant Professor Christi Camper Moore, Assistant Professor of Instruction Benny Simon and Artistic Director Travis Gatling.
“What you’ll see and hear on stage is the culmination of hours and hours of moving and thinking through the body,” Simon said in an email. “Working rigorously with both instinct and analysis, these dancers deepen their skills in collaboration, communication, design and specificity.”
The concert will consist of modern dancing, which is a style of dance which is based on the body and expressivity of it. It will last one hour and 15 minutes and will have no intermission.
Guest artist Alexandra Beller’s work is titled “The journey here was as long as it was wide, but taller,” and dancers will collaboratively generate the movement and text for an interrogation that shows what is understood from the body cannot always be put into words.
"Modern dance is an expressive art form that uses the body to communicate a point of view, an attitude about the body, social issues, or the world, and can also suggest an emotion through the use of costumes, lighting, and the specific choreography,” Dr. Camper Moore said. “The Winter Dance Concert features students performing in works by the School of Dance faculty and guest artists. Each piece uniquely invites the audience to share in the experience and to celebrate the power and beauty of dance.”
Camper Moore’s piece is titled “Residuum” and explores themes of how connections with other people leave a lasting imprint on the body, according to the university’s press release of the event.
“My piece is new,” Camper Moore said. “There are seven dancers, and they have been working on this since the beginning of fall semester.”
The concert will engage the audience with movement, music and spoken text through different themes that trace the human experience.
“Cry Out” is a solo both created and danced by Dancy, in which he represents someone who has been caught in the middle of nowhere, and whose inner emotions attempt to initiate an escape.
Benny Simon’s “Further Responses” investigates the themes of crucifixion and redemption through a contemporary lens, which includes life in the midst of global crisis and how holding is a healing power.
According to the event’s press release, Gatling said, "Winter Dance Concert 2020 presents the creative and collaborative efforts of the faculty, students and guest artists working together to create and perform both new and existing choreography. We hope that you will join us in celebrating the human expression through dance and its ability to inspire, transform and move us.”
