With choreography ranging from the soaring to the subtle, the Brigham Young University Dancers' Company will present a concert of student works Thursday and Friday, April 1-2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Dance Studio Theatre, 166 Richards Building.
Tickets are $6 and can be purchased online at byuarts.com, by phone at (801) 422-4322 or in person at the Harris Fine Arts Center Ticket Office.
The concert will include Aaron Shaw’s piece “All in a Day,” which tells the story of the pursuit of everyday survival of early man and how the story of the same pursuit continues today in every part of the world.
A subsequent work by Lauren Wadsworth also delves into the question of the everyday life. “In her four-part suite, ‘Losing Time,’ Wadsworth asks us to consider what we spend our time doing, what we really find important in our lives and how the balance of these two things affects us and those around us,” said artistic director Pat Debenham.
The program also includes Erin Hughes’ “Cool For No Reason.” Inspired by pictures of James Dean and the Beat Generation, the dance is performed to music by Miles Davis.
Also featured is “Cinema Shorts,” a dance suite by Debenham, which first premiered at the 2009 Dance in Concert and was recently presented at the regional festival of the American College Dance Festival. Its choreography is stripped down both emotionally and physically to the bare bones, according to Debenham. “It is a daring solo that shows life at its most vulnerable,” he said.
The first section of the work is a sextet of physical precision with music by Italian composer Nino Rota. The second section, set to Shostakovich’s “Romance,” showcases a trio of women who move with supple spines and long leg extensions through the air as if playing the music with their movement. In the third section, Eli Bauer dances to the melancholy “Smile,” written by silent film star Charlie Chaplin.
For more information, contact Pat Debenham at (801) 422-3340 or at pat_debenham@byu.edu.
