On Sunday at 3 p.m., the lights in Haas Center for the Arts dimmed as a select few of the dance minor program took the stage to perform the fourth annual dance minor concert. The show was put together by students, faculty and staff of by Bloomsburg University Division of Theater and Dance College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Office & CGA. The artistic director behind the repertory show is dance minor educator, Julie Petry. Although Petry is the artistic director, only two of her pieces were displayed during the program. The perk of being a student in the dance minor ensemble course is you have the opportunity to create work for the show. Students became the teachers and Petry became the audience.
Act I began with one of two repertory piece’s by Petry titled, As The Wreckage Stood Up. In this piece you’ll find the students of Petry’s repertory class. In the program under each title of the seven different pieces, there you’ll find a quote picked out by the choreographer that relates to the specific piece. For the first number, the theme of the dance was loneliness. The quote chosen for this particular piece was, “I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.” – Augusten Burroughs, Dry.
The show continued with the first student choreographed piece of the show, by Elizabeth Potter. The piece was titled, Sleep Unslept. The dancers performed in a constant sleeping motion. The one piece that stood out to me the most was Their Innocence Forever Lost, choreographed by Jenna Strain. This piece was choreographed as a tribute to the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting victims, those that survived and to those that passed. The dancers were dressed as students and teachers, while live 911 calls played in the background intertwined with the music.
The dancers take the stage again for their closing night, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.