UofSC Dancers Premiere New Works Dec. 4-7

The University of SC Department of Theatre and Dance will present its Fall 2018 Student Choreography Showcase December 4-7 at Drayton Hall Theatre.

Show times are 7:30pm nightly. Tickets for the concert are $15 for students, $20 for UofSC Faculty/Staff, Military and Seniors, and $22 for the general public. Tickets may be reserved in advance online at dance.sc.edu, by phone at 803-777-2551, or purchasing in person at the main box office, located at Longstreet Theatre (1300 Greene St.). Longstreet box office hours are 12:30 - 5:30pm, Monday - Friday. Tickets may also be purchased at the door in advance of the performance each evening. Drayton Hall Theatre is located at 1214 College St, across from the historic UofSC Horseshoe.

Nine original dance works, representing a wide variety of choreographic styles and themes, will be performed. Each of the works has been created by an undergraduate dance student.

University dance instructor Cindy Flach is directing the concert, and has led the adjudication process through which the student works have been selected. At the beginning of the Fall semester, students submitted partially constructed works to a panel of dance faculty. Once selected, the students have continued to create and refine their works in advance of the end-of-the-semester showcase.

Flach says that it's not just choreography for its own sake that the student artists are encouraged to develop over the semester.

"Communication is the key," she says. "Getting across what they're thinking, saying or feeling, and letting their dancers perform it, not just dance it. That's been the instruction from the beginning - to make sure you're reaching out to somebody in the audience, to somebody who's experiencing or thinking the same thing as you. And to make it clear enough that that somebody wants to see more of your work."

Included among the nine new works are:

• Pay the Toll by senior Dance major Michael Miranda, an exploration of facing one's inner demons;

• Duende by junior Dance major Caroline Beverly, a piece inspired by Spanish culture;

• Downtown Crossing by senior Dance/Visual Communication major Meredith Price, who was inspired by the bustling, yet solitary, environment of a subway; and,
  

• intertwined by senior Public Health major/Dance minor Shreya Mehta, a work which fuses contemporary American dance with Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance.

"So far, the biggest challenge that I've faced in creating movement that not only complements the music, but also speaks to the audience clearly," says choreographer Miranda. "Learning to modify and be flexible has been required in the process of creating my piece."

"In order to get better at something, you just have to keep creating," says Price. "The more you make, the more you have to choose from. Then, one day, you might have an epiphany and everything just fits into place."

Photo by Jason Ayer

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