School of Theatre and Dance’s pre-professional dance ensemble presents annual concert
On April 5, 6 and 7, Kent State University’s School of Theatre and Dance will present the Kent Dance Ensemble’s annual main stage concert, New View. The concert will be performed in E. Turner Stump Theatre, located in the Music and Speech Building at 1325 Theatre Dr. on the Kent Campus. Friday and Saturday evening performances begin at 8 p.m., and the Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. A complimentary reception will take place after the Friday, April 5, performance. To reserve tickets, call the Performing Arts Box Office at 330-672-2787 between noon and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. General adult admission is $16; $14 for Kent State faculty, staff and Alumni Association members; $12 for seniors; and $8 for non-Kent State students with a valid I.D. Tickets are free for all full-time, undergraduate students from the Kent Campus.
New View is a concert of jazz and modern dances choreographed by four Kent State faculty members as well as New York City guest artist Linda Nutter. The evening opens with Nutter’s farcical Rhyme Nor Reason, a sextet first performed by New York University dancers more than 25 years ago. The whimsical dance is chock full of non-sequiters and cultural references from the 1980s, as well as animal images and everyday pedestrian movement — see how many you can find. A trio of dancers moves through an athletic conversation using intense gestures and shared body language in Hidden Dialogue, choreographed by Kent State’s Joan Meggitt, artistic/executive director of Antaeus Dance, Cleveland. The intensely physical choreography requires the dancers to throw themselves through space and at one another. The first half of the concert closes with Assistant Professor Erin LaSala’s quirky new trio Femmes Fortes, a high-energy study of the inner "superhero" who lives inside us all.
After intermission, we’ll have you groovin’ in your seats with Artistic Director Kimberly Karpanty’s new concert jazz work that blends sophisticated wit with a vigorous, stylized vocabulary. Each of the five performers brought her own unique personality and movement flair to the work, fashioned as a reply to two tracks by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. This season, the 10 new, hardworking young women in the pre-professional student dance company will be joined by 4-6th grade music students from Defer Intermediate School in Streetsboro for a special treat. Emerging unexpectedly from the audience, the Defer Dancers will approach the stage and perform short creative dances of their own derision, made in intensive after-school workshops. When they have finished slithering, sliding, floating and gliding, the evening will close with Associate Professor Barbara Allegra Verlezza’s vigorous Monkey Brains and Paper Chains, performed by all 10 members of the ensemble. This spirited and dynamic dance explores the concepts of an indecisive, unsettled and anxious ‘monkey brain’ complicated by the fragile or restraints (paper chains) that impede the ability for one to make changes in thought or behavior.
Contact Karpanty at 330-672-0127 or kkarpant@kent.edu for more information on the ensemble’s upcoming performances and educational outreach programs.