OSU Department of Dance Presents Spring Concert, ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE, 3/26

The Ohio State University Department of Dance presents its Spring Concert, Absolute Existence, featuring the work of 15 student choreographers from the undergraduate and graduate programs. The concert will be presented Thursday, March 26 to Saturday, March 28 in the Barnett Theatre in Sullivant Hall, 1813 N. High St.

• In Wreckage, choreographed by Shannon Drake (BFA '15), worlds collide and bleed together. Characters emerge. A new world surfaces from the pieces flitting by.
• Gabrielle Gomez (BFA '15) presents Cocoon - "The next time you lose heart and you can't bear to experience what you're feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering - yours, mine and that of all living beings." -Pema Chodron
• Emma Cooper (BFA '15) presents neither height nor depth, a self-choreographed solo, as her senior project. The work is a reflection of factors in her own choreographic process such as decisions and choices, pathways, the messiness of life and most importantly, her faith.
• The Othersiders, choreographed by Lyndsey Vader (PhD '19), considers the possibility that we hold within our bodies distinct memories of people, places and events from times unknown to us.
• Through Approaching the Know, Callie Lacinski (BFA '17) presents a solo exploring her personal movement aesthetic of immediate response against uncomfortable investigation spread through different contexts.
• Kylee C. Smith (BFA '17) presents Bloodlines, a self-choreographed solo work inspired by the lineage of her ancestors as African Americans living in the Deep South.
• Affinity III, choreographed by Gabriella Wiltz (BFA '17), is a trio exploring the relationships between music, performers and space as well as how relationships play upon, through and around each other.
• Chelsea Shott (BFA '15) presents Winsome Patrons of Uncanny Antiquities, a collaborative process between dancers and director that explores the outcomes of simultaneously embodying two contrasting physical concepts.
• Kristina D'Onofrio (MFA '16) presents Rapha. The title comes from the Hebrew language and means "to heal." Her work is inspired by the comparison of the water cycle to the cyclical nature of life and seasons of humanity while also being a personal reflection of her own experience of healing from the "Water of Life," Jesus Christ.
• The Speciation Of, a trio, is Jada Green's (BFA '15) senior project piece in collaboration with musician John Neumeier and poet JG The Jugganaut. It is a work exploring the effect people have on each other in relation to the space and their role in a progressive unit.
• Julia Ayau (BFA '17) presents Sodade, Xinti. "Sodade" is a word of Creole/Cape Verdean origin that cannot be directly translated into any other language, which signifies a sort of deep melancholic longing for an absent someone or something a person loves. "Xinti," another Creole word, means "unexpectedly." This solo is dedicated to her family as a whole, but especially to her late grandmother, Myrna Ayau, who was Cape Verdean and a dancer.
• Tammy Carrasco (MFA '15) and Sarah Levitt (MFA '16) possess strikingly similar physical attributes. Petite in stature and equally athletic with a low-riding center of gravity, these two dancers explore partnering, gesture, elegant pauses and assertive declarations in space. Carrasco and Levitt render themselves distinct women with permeable borders as they seamlessly merge and diverge from one another, much like the ways in which modern and post-modern choreographic ideologies intersect in their duet entitled Semi-Formal.

Tickets are available through the Ohio State Theatre Box Office, (614) 292-2295. For details, go to dance.osu.edu.