The showcase for MFA students in the dance program at the University of Illinois is spoiled for choice this year. As in the past, Studiodance I is being presented in an A program and B program, alternating time slots at 7 or 9 p.m. throughout the weekend.
For something different this year, there is an additional program, Studiodance I…Extended, being staged on the second floor of KCPA in Dance Rehearsal Room Krannert at 7:30 p.m. on April 1st and 2nd, for free.
As always, the performances will feature a plethora of dance and performance styles exploring myriad themes.
Program A:
Jessica Pretty examines what exactly it means to become a community, and how exactly it happens, from the perspective of someone who has always felt like an outsider in Part Two: the spectacle of us.
Contemporary street dance will be performed by a crew of five in Brendan P. Behan’s work that investigates the singular approach taken by styles like krump, popping and house.
Program B:
A dance-theatre work, Social Animal Please Tame Me will feature six dancers calling out spontaneous instructions for the others to perform, as a demonstration of collaboration, decision-making, and togetherness created by Laiyle Weidman.
Jessie Young’s descend sky is a choreographic venture into the physicality of inevitable loss and personal myth. Colliding and shape shifting, a powerhouse quartet tumbles and resurfaces within a tectonic soundscape by Bessie Award winning composer Jason Finkelman.
(the above is straight from the press release because I sure couldn’t say it any differently)
Extended:
In the second installment of her triptych, Sophia Levine’s contrapasso places nine different dancers into a repeat performance to exemplify space, time, and bodies as agents and objects of change.
Hadley Smith asks nine women to cut through space and burn through time. Relentless Display is a dance and a method of being wherein the sublime materiality of the body coalesces into intricate systems and unwinds into absurdity.
(again, directly from the press release)
Studiodance I opened this evening, but repeats Friday and Saturday nights for just $15 per time slot (so $30 if you want to see both 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.) As always, there are discounts sliding down to $9 per ticket, see the website for details, or call 1-800-KCPA-TIX.