Diavolo will perform at Purdue University on Sept. 28

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Diavolo will bring “L.O.S.T.” to the Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse on Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. This performance is presented by Purdue Convocations with support from the Davis Family Endowment, Student Concert Committee and the Student Fee Advisory Board.

Each waking moment marks a chance to chase time, achieve goals or discover the unknown. But are we truly the captains of our own destinies, or simply a collective, caged by social constructs larger than us? Pursuing the answers with astounding athleticism and infinite grace, Diavolo defies traditional definitions of dance and gravity. Company members leap, roll, slide and fly through space, navigating two-ton, stage-spanning pieces of specially commissioned architecture.

For 25 years, Diavolo’s “architecture in motion” has explored the relationship between the human body and its environment — revealing how the spaces we inhabit both inhibit and inspire our triumphs over challenge or adversity. L.O.S.T. (Losing One’s Self Temporarily) is a two-part piece that examines the push-and-pull of control and vulnerability in everyday rituals of commuting and working. 

Taking place in, around, and atop a train that transforms into both staircase and ark, Passengers is a wild mind trip through shifting consciousness where dancers negotiate a tenuous balance of being along for the ride, or driving with purpose, on the adventure of life. 

Set in a grey-bathed business office, Cubicle explores how cramped conditions and monotonous tasks affect the human condition depicting the struggle to maintain individuality while ascending the corporate ladder. 

In its return to Purdue after dazzling audiences in a sold-out engagement in 2007, Diavolo uses vigorous choreography and emotional intensity to find drama and danger in the everyday, and uncover aspects of humanity that both divide and unite us. 

Tickets are $30 for adults and $22 for children 18 years and younger, Purdue students and Ivy Tech Lafayette students. Tickets are available at the Stewart Center box office at 765-494-3933 or 800-914-SHOW. Group tickets are also available to groups of 10 more. Call 765-496-1977 for more details or visit https://purdue.edu/convocations/group-sales/.

Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations was one of the first professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers the region 30-40 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. With a vision for connecting artists and audiences in artistic dialogue and for drawing in academic discourse, Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media.

Source: Abby Eddy, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, 765-494-9712, aeeddy@purdue.edu 

Note to Journalists: Publication-quality photos are available at http://www.convocations.org/press