Are you looking for yet another way to appreciate Ram talent? Well, it is time to celebrate this semester’s Spring Dance Concert with the Colorado State dance division.
Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. the show will be held in the Dance Theater at the University Center for the Arts.
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Cost will be $11 for students with IDs, $10 for youth under 18 years of age and $18 for adults.
Although the dance division puts on a show each semester, they always have something new to bring to the table.
Assistant ballet professor Carol Roderick wrote in an email to the Collegian, “The concert is unique because the repertoire has never been performed in a CSU concert before, and may not be repeated. This is, by the way, true of all of our concerts in the CSU Dance Division.”
This concert will be a collaboration of dance styles as a result of combined choreography efforts.
“With the exception of the ballet repertoire piece, all the works are original choreographic works created by CSU faculty, our guest artist, or student choreographers,” Roderick wrote.
This semester’s guest choreographer is Shih Kun-Chen, who was invited to assist with the concert by associate professor of the CSU dance program Chung-Fu Chang.
“It’s been a very different experience compared to any other guest choreographer we’ve ever had,” said Kayla Banks, a sophomore double major in dance and communications.
The piece choreographed by Kun-Chen is called “The Corner.”
“I feel like it’s about finding your own corner where you can express and be yourself,” Banks said. “He uses simple moves but challenges us to manipulate the movements. It’s very mentally and physically tiring.”
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The dancers have been working with Kun-Chen for two months.
Banks went on to say, “I’ve learned a lot about myself from this piece. Kun-Chen spent a lot of time coaching our improv; it felt like he was digging into our souls.”
While Banks favors the Kun-Chen piece, fellow dancer Bailey Ostdiek, a junior dance major, is excited to showcase the ballet repertoire.
“This show is a great presentation of our ballet strengths. The ballet repertoire is a traditional ballet based in the mid-nineteenth century,” Ostdiek said.
This weekend’s performance will give the audience a peek inside the dancer world with exposure to traditional dancing as well as some not-so-traditional interpretive dancing.
“The performance is the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ The setting of choreography, daily training, and rehearsals are what our work IS in the dance profession,” Roderick wrote. “Certainly it is sometimes stressful, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes exhausting, but it is most profoundly, our work.”
Music and Performing Arts Beat Reporter Peyton Garcia can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com.
