Purdue Contemporary Dance Company to perform Spring Works concert

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Contemporary Dance Company's Spring Works 2015 dance concert performances will take place May 1-2.

PCDC is the resident dance company in the Division of Dance, housed in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. Performances will be held in Yue-Kong Pao Hall's Nancy T. Hansen Theatre at 7:30 p.m. each evening, with a matinee at 2 p.m. on May 2.

"This spring our performances express the euphoria of sprites on a mountain under the full moon, explore what it is to be human, present a community keeping and revealing secrets and utilize both horizontal and vertical space with stabilized poles," said Carol Cunningham-Sigman, Division of Dance chair. "Students in our sound for the performing arts major created all of the accompanying music and sound pieces."

Tickets are $14 for the public, $11 for students and $7 for those 12 and younger. Tickets can be purchased at Loeb or Pao Hall box offices at 765-494-3933 or 800-914-SHOW and through Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000.

Five of the seven pieces to be presented were choreographed by faculty and students created two.

The dances are:

* "Silence Breaking," by faculty member Sally Wallace. The work explores the increasing commonness of disclosure of personal truths and public acceptance of such truths. The dance uses seven female dancers to develop the idea of "breaking silence."

* Faculty member Holly Jaycox's work titled "Resilience (You Are Not Alone)." In this piece, individuals experience slow as well as sudden, unexpected change. Dancers fly through the air and trod gently on the ground, finding ways to support each other.

* "Parts of a Whole," by Mary Beth Van Dyke, faculty member. This piece is a modern dance work examining the question of what it means to be human with a 10-person cast made of males and females.

* Faculty member Kathleen Hickey's choreography called "Mariah Carey's Wardrobe of Plain Jane Finger-Traps." Hickey's piece looks to peel back the layers of human affectations and grandiose attitudes that can inform and instigate dynamic dance onstage. The acting in Monty Python and the choreography of Pina Bausch inspired the work's attitudes on bold movements onstage.

* "Reverse to Start," by faculty member Renee Murray. An abstract, process-based work made in collaboration with its dancers, the piece begins with basic movement and transitions into a more complex dance with a light energy and a nod to social dance.

* "On the Highest Hill, in the Shortest Night," by Edite Grendze, a senior in materials science and engineering with a dance minor. Grendze's choreography explores the human experience of joy and ecstasy through modern myth. Dancers create a world where they are observing the midsummer solstice.

* The final piece will be a combination of modern dance movement and pole dance inspired by the mythological harpy, choreographed by Amberly Simpson, a graduating senior in psychology and creative writing. 

Writer: Rachel Semple, rsemple@purdue.edu

Media contact: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Carol Cunningham-Sigman, Division of Dance chair, Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts, 765-494-5993, carolec@purdue.edu