Students in Tennessee’s only bachelor’s degree dance program are ready to display their talents on three successive nights — Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 29-Dec. 1 — after collaborating with two top professionals this fall.
The MTSU Dance Theatre’s Fall Dance Concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29-Dec. 1 in Tucker Theatre, located inside the Boutwell Dramatic Arts Building at 615 Champion Way.
A campus map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParking.
General-admission tickets for the Fall Dance Concert are $10 for adults and $5 for K-12 students and seniors and are available at www.mtsuarts.com. MTSU students will be admitted free with a valid ID.
The Tucker Theatre Box Office also will open one hour before each performance for ticket purchases.
The pre-professional company of more than 30 dancers will perform faculty and guest artist choreography with a wide variety of themes, ranging from the environment to race and gender identity.
A student dancer displays her agility in the Spring 2018 Dance Concert at MTSU. The Fall 2018 Dance Concert event is slated for Nov. 29-Dec. 1 at Tucker Theatre. (Photo courtesy of Martin O’Connor)
Two guest artists created original works for the Fall Dance Concert during their visit with MTSU students and faculty in September.
Rebecca Steinberg, a company dancer with Nashville-based New Dialect, created a piece titled “The Clearing” in a contemporary creative process with student dancers. The dance represents the beginning of a collaborative relationship between MTSU and New Dialect.
Katherine Duke, artistic director of the New York-based Erick Hawkins Dance Company, created a new work, “Junoesque,” with MTSU dance professors Marsha Barsky and Meg Brooker and lecturer Chell Parkins.
Barsky’s “Left Behind” will reflect on the destructive impact of plastic waste in the oceans. Brooker’s “Women with Wings” will depict a journey from fragility to personal strength. Parkins’ “Raiz” will use movements inspired by Katherine Dunham’s technique to explore complexities of race and colonization in Puerto Rico.
Adjunct faculty members also are contributing their choreography.
MTSU Theatre and Dance logoJennifer McNamara will stage a performance from “Coppelia, Act III,” and Jade Treadwell’s “BOUND” will investigate both inherited and embodied human responses to fear. Laurel Walker’s “Control” will interpret society’s responses to anger, particularly children’s experiences with that emotion.
A unique silent auction to benefit dance scholarships at MTSU also will accompany the concert. Items up for bid include gifts from the Nashville Predators, the Tennessee Titans, Pure Barre, The Dance Store, Bongo Java, Nothing Bundt Cakes and other donors.
For more information about MTSU’s dance program or the MTSU Dance Theatre, visit www.mtsu.edu/dance.
— Gina Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)
