USC to Celebrate 50 Years of Dance With Betsy Blackmon Dance Company Fall Concert

The USC Department of Theatre and Dance will commemorate 50 years of dance at USC with the Betsy Blackmon Dance Company Fall Concert, November 5-6 at the Koger Center for the Arts.

Performances begin at 6:30 p.m. nightly. Admission is $15 for students, $22 for USC faculty/staff, military, and seniors 60+, and $25 for the general public. Tickets may be purchased online at kogercenterforthearts.com or by calling 803-251-2222. The Koger Center is located at 1051 Greene St.

The concert will feature Professor Stephanie Milling's reconstruction of the landmark ballet Pas de Quatre, a work performed at the first university dance concert in 1976; premiere works by Distinguished Artist-in-Residence Kathryn Morgan and Assistant Professor Aaron Wood; and excerpts from José Limón's iconic A Choreographic Offering.

"I think this concert's a really special opportunity to celebrate where we've been and where we're going," says Associate Professor Jennifer Deckert, Director of the Betsy Blackmon Dance Program (BBDP).

Originally choreographed by Jules Perrot in 1845, Pas de Quatre brought together four of the greatest ballerinas of the Romantic era, showcasing their individual technical and artistic strengths. Dr. Milling has reconstructed the ballet after extensive research into its many iterations over the past 180 years while bringing a contemporary perspective to the work.

"Part of what is unfortunate about the history of this work is that we haven't heard the voices of the legendary women who originally performed it," Milling says, noting that ballerinas were historically seen and written about from a decidedly male perspective. "I've tried to create more of an environment of female empowerment in this staging. The dancers are there as empowered women, not to be seen or objectified."

The celebration of women's voices continues in Portraits Unsilenced, a new ballet choreographed by Kathryn Morgan, a former soloist with New York City Ballet and Miami Ballet who has recently joined the BBDP as a Distinguished Artist-in-Residence. The contemporary ballet work shines the spotlight on the six wives of King Henry VIII, portraying each queen with a distinctive movement vocabulary.

"If these women could speak now, what would they say?" asks Morgan. "I think over the years they've become known mainly for the difficulties that happened to them, rather than the fact that they were people also."

The evening will also include the debut of here • there • anywhere • nowhere, a contemporary work by Assistant Professor Aaron Wood, a new addition to the USC dance faculty. Inspired in part by his recent move from Wyoming to Columbia, the piece examines how changes in environment and community shape our understanding of ourselves. Created in collaboration with dance instructor Anna Pillot, who serves as the new Technical Director for the BBDP, the multimedia dance work incorporates hand-held video cameras whose live images will be projected onto the dancers and a backdrop, creating shifting visual perspectives that complement the choreography.

"[This] is a work about time, place, and the shifting contours of identity," Wood says. "The work considers the self in relation to community, as well as the particles and possibilities carried from one's past, present, and future.

Closing out the concert is a reprise performance of excerpts from José Limón's A Choreographic Offering, a work set on the Betsy Blackmon Dance Company by Limón Dance artist Savannah Spratt in spring 2026. Created in 1964 in memory of modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, a mentor to Limón and his company's first artistic director, the piece combines motifs and variations on Humphrey's choreography to create what Limón called "a memorial bouquet" in which "all the flowers … are her movements."

Together, the works offer a portrait of dance across generations, from the traditions that helped establish USC's dance program to the artists shaping its future.