The Dance Minor program to present “The Annual Spring Concert”

By Erin Semple
Staff Writer

The Dance Minor program will present The Annual Spring Concert on Saturday, March 16 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 17 at 2:30 p.m. in the Russell Auditorium.
The performance will feature tap, jazz, lyrical, pointe, modern and excerpts from the dance composition class.
“Every year we try to do a mixture, because we have a lot of choreographers,” said Amelia Pelton, instructor of the Dance Minor program. “It is really different that we are dancing tap to classical music.”
“The tap piece is done with gothic sounding music of ‘Tocotta’ and ‘Fugue’ by J.S. Bach. It is classical music. The jazz is four seasons and is choreographed by Kora Radella. The lyrical piece is done to Enya music and is a trio,” said Dance Minor program and the dance captain for the tap piece. “The pointe is a modern piece rather than classical. The Modern piece is a trio by Radella, and it is from Finland.”
The pointe piece is called “Speak easy, Dance easy” and the music is by George Gershwin and called “Summertime, Our love is here to stay.” Speak easy was a bar in the twenties. Dr. Wendy Mullen will sing this piece and will be accompanied by Jenny Moore.
“It is sensual, sexy and flirty,” said Pelton.
Kora Radella, professor of dance, will be presenting two new works in this concert. The first is a modern dance trio in three sections performed to vocal music from Finland.
It is entitled “Yoik in Motion.” Yoik is the S?mi way of talking and purifying oneself. The jazz piece by Radella is entitled “Four Seasons Jazzed” and will feature twelve dancers and the entire GC&SU jazz combo led by music professor Ross Feller. The jazz combo will play “Autumn Leaves”, “Skating in Central Park,” “Joy Spring”, and “Summertime” live on stage along with the dancers.
Lea Birdsong, Devon Sheppard, Kate McGee, Jennifer Fallin and Ashley Lundell created the dance composition pieces. Birdsong and McGee created their own trios. Sheppard will perform a solo to “Fallin’” by Alicia Keyes.
“My piece is very unusual. My choreography is in opposition to the lyrics of the song,” said Sheppard. “We created these pieces in the dance composition class, and they were developed well enough to be staged.”
This concert will also feature guest artists Kristine Necessary and Christian Clark from the Atlanta Ballet in a classical Pas de deux, or a step dance for two, from “Don Quixote.”
Admission is free and open to the public.
For more information, please contact the Continuing Education Program at 445-5277.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 8 2002. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry