School of Dance presents new choreography, free concerts
ASU School of Dance students will present new and works-in-progress choreography during free concerts Oct. 20-21, at the Margaret Gisolo Dance Studio, on the Tempe campus.
The Graduate Project Presentations from MFA students in the School of Dance, in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts include:
• Julie Akerly's It's Always Too Late uses multi-media projections to enhance character evolution and development of the main character, Mother Earth. Original music and costumes are contributed by collaborating artists Gil Dori, graduate music composition major, and Haley Peterson, undergraduate costume design student.
• In Fingerdance: The Solo, Helen Buck performs a traditional Irish Step Dancing set, Planxty Davis, in an unexpected way. This piece is an offshoot of Buck's thesis research.
• Inertia Dewitt presents Swimming in the Psyche, a piece that captures the disorienting process of unpacking the details of the true self.
• Although Breaking Bounds, choreographed by Kelsey Finlayson, explores concepts of abandonment and bondage, it also uncovers ways to escape restrictions.
• Amanda Ling’s solo, Grass and Gravel, is a self-exploration and reflection of home. Referencing her Southern roots, Ling's sparkling movement creates the essence of home and provokes nostalgia.
• Violet Flight: Pursuit of Significance, a new work by Britta Joy Peterson, is an exploration of the conflicting desires to be one of, stand out from, and be significant to the rest of the flock.
• Kristopher Pourzal presents in the middle of things, a conversation piece and improvisation score that subtly flexes its muscles at the futility/inevitability/substantiality of sense-making in an illogical world.
• Tricia Ragsdale’s Envidia explores the inner ferocity that is sometimes hidden within women and what happens when that ferocity is released.
• Ashlee Jo Ramsey presents a new solo that considers the human disposition to compare and classify individuals or cultural groups. Inspired by her experiences traveling in India for five months, Ramsey explores assumptions about beliefs and purposes as well as cross-cultural ideas of gender, race and sexuality. This work questions the boundaries between fascination and objectification, seeking and grasping, curiosity and voyeurism, self and other.
• Lose Those Love Handles (so someone will love you), choreographed by Denise A. Stein, is a comment on the absurdity of cardio dance workout videos.
• Laurel Wall-MacLane interweaves the cast’s stories of everyday life with quirky movement and full, expressive dancing in the closing piece speak/hear listen/tell.
Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. each night. The studio is at 611 E. Orange St., in the Physical Education Building East (PEBE), room 132 . Although the concerts are free, but tickets are required and are distributed at 6:30 p.m. for each performance night on a first-come, first-served basis in the Physical Education Building East lobby. Only one ticket is issued per person.