CCBC Dance Company to Present Spring Dance Concert, 4/21

BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (April 13, 2016) - The CCBC Dance Company at the Community College of Baltimore County, performs its Spring Dance Concert, April 21 at 11:15 a.m. and April 22 and 23 at 8 p.m. in the College Community Center Theatre at CCBC Essex, 7201 Rossville Boulevard. Tickets, which are $8 general admission and $5 for seniors, students and CCBC faculty, staff and alumni, are available from the CCBC Box Office at 443-840-ARTS (2787). For CCBC students with current IDs admission is free.

The spring semester CCBC Dance Company members are: Alexa Breakiron of Joppa, Md., Anna Gibeck and Sara Pistorio of Perry Hall, Md., Monae Johnson and Kelsey Lewis of Randallstown, Md., Asia Mitchell of Gwynn Oak, Md., Tiffany Morgan of Baltimore, Md., Bobby O'Brien of Fallston, Md., Rachel Pavlosky of Dundalk, Md., and Rachel Weddington of Middle River, Md.

The 2016 Spring Dance Concert includes new choreography by Melinda Blomquist, Tommy Parlon, Alvin Mayes, Kristi Schaffner, Alexa Breakiron and Anna Gibeck. The pieces explore a wide range of movement styles and narratives, including angular movement and specific lines that interweave along with the dancers and their motion, personal struggle, forgiveness, locating joy and an homage to African and modern jazz techniques.

CCBC 2016 Spring Dance Concert:

We are to find joy (2016)

Choreographer: Melinda Blomquist

Dancers: Alexa Breakiron, Anna Gibeck, Monae Johnson, Kelsey Lewis, Asia Mitchell and Bobby O'Brien

This is a new work developed to examine the processes that we each go through in our journey to find joy in our lives. Each of the dancers contributed a story to the work and through their written words we see one journey of finding joy.

In Between the Lines (2016)

Choreographer: Anna Gibeck

Music: Factory by Michael Price

Dancers: Alexa Breakiron, Kelsey Lewis, Asia Mitchell, Sara Pistorio (This work is in partial fulfillment of the AFA Degree in Dance.)

The dance plays with angular movement and specific lines that interweave along with the dancers and their motion.

Growing Closer? (2016)

Choreographer: Kristi Schaffner

Dancers: Rachel Pavlosky and Tiffany Morgan cast 2: Rachel Weddington and Sara Pistorio

"Growing Closer?" is a duet between two dancers. While they occupy much of the same physical space, the viewer must decide how much emotional closeness the performers actually share.

Incongruent Moments (2015)
Choreographer: Melinda Blomquist

Dancers: Alexa Breakiron, Kelsey Lewis and Asia Mitchell

This work explores the moments of juxtaposition between the dancers and the space, as the shift and move through the space how they relate with each other evolves. (This work was presented at the American College Dance Association Conference where it received praise for the choreography and the excellent skill and performance quality of the dancers.)

étapes sophaticated (2016)

Choreographer: Tommy Parlon

Dancers: CCBC Dance Company

Jazz is art form that takes elements of African dance, tap, modern dance, ballet and American Vernacular dance and combines it into its own unique genre. Jack Cole is considered to be the father of "modern jazz" dance. He combined all of the mentioned dance forms into a theatrical form of dance. He choreographed many films for Marilyn Monroe (Gentleman Prefer Blondes) and defined Rita Haworth's glamour when he choreographed "Put the Blame on Mame" from the movie Gilda. He and the musical artists are the inspiration for this dance. All three versions of these songs were recorded in the 1960's.

Racing thoughts in an indecisive mind lead to contagious words (2016)

Choreographer: Alexa Breakiron

Dancers: Anna Gibeck, Asia Mitchell, Sara Pistorio
(This work is in partial fulfillment of the AFA Degree in Dance.)

This piece is about the choreographer's personal struggle that has surfaced this year and how the dancers struggle also relate.

3 Words (2016)
Choreographer: Danielle Sten-Guillermo

Dancers: Anna Gibeck, Kelsey Lewis, Asia Mitchell, Sara Pistorio

This piece asks for forgiveness of leaving without notice - running away from a life that no longer served its person fully and completely. As we all know, there is only one reason why one would run away to a place far, far away to embrace a new beginning...and that reason is love, or the lack thereof.

As quiet As ... (2016)

Choreographer: Guest Artist - Alvin Mayes
Dancers: Alexa Breakiron, Asia Mitchell, Tiffany Morgan, Rachel Pavlosky, Sara Pistorio and Rachel Weddington

"As quiet As ..." is a collaborative work with Alvin Mayes and the dancers in the work.

He asked the dancers to complete the phrase "as quiet as ..." of which the dancers replied "a feather, a lion stalking its prey, a whisper, snow, a statue." Mayes then wrote poems from those responses. Paul D Jackson recorded Mayes speaking the poems and engineered a score with the music of Robert Slap. The consequent work is a textural travelogue of imagery.