UofSC Dance hosts showcase of choreography by students and alumni at the Koger

The UofSC Dance Program will present Benchmark of Choreography, an evening of original student and alumni dance works, April 14, 2016 at the Koger Center for the Arts.

Show time is 7:30pm.  Tickets for the concert are $12 for students, $16 for UofSC Faculty/Staff, Military and Seniors, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets are available by phone at 803-777-5112or online at www.kogercenterforthearts.com.  The Koger Center is located at 1051 Greene St. 

For several years, the dance program has presented showcases of student choreography each semester.  This concert marks the first time works that have been performed in the fall semester have been chosen to be further developed and restaged for the spring showcase.

“There were eleven pieces in the fall, and we chose four to move ahead to this concert,” says concert director Cindy Flach.  “Some of them are lengthened, some are tightened, some have been expanded.  It’s been a process of the choreographers deconstructing their works and then putting them back together.”

The concert will also feature original works from two dance program alums, another first for the showcase series.  

“We’ve two alumnae coming back home with new viewpoints and different styles of dance that they’ve been exposed to since graduating,” says Flach. “It’s the first time we’ve combined student and alumni work [for the showcase].”

While the choreography will certainly entertain, the audience can expect to be engaged intellectually, as well, as many of the works being showcased tackle current societal issues.  

A sample of the works to be performed includes:

• For Now We See in a Mirror Dimly… by dance alumna Rebecca Krumel (’12), an excerpt from a larger work that examines ideals of female beauty;

• Sunday Shoes by dance alumna Melinda Rawlinson (’13), a piece accompanied by live violin which explores societal bias toward heterosexuality; and,

• Melanin by Dustin Praylow, which surveys the history of racial oppression in the US and features interviews with families of the “Charleston Nine,” victims of the June 2015 church shooting in Charleston, SC.

The concert also includes choreography by dance students Vidal X. James, Neely Moss and Mary Scott.  

For more information about Benchmark of Choreography or the dance program at the University of SC, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at [email protected]. 

“Melanin” performed for the Fall 2015 Choreography Showcase at Drayton Hall Theatre.

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Photo from “The Mirror” by Vidal James,  performed for the Fall 2015 Choreography Showcase at Drayton Hall Theatre.  The title of the piece has been changed for this concert to “Bitter.”