Focusing on a new theme each year, the University of Idaho Dance Program centers their fall concert on an action within the department, with this year’s theme centering on convergence.
UI dance students will perform “Convergence” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, as well as 2 p.m. Sunday in the Hartung Theatre.
Tickets cost $8 for UI students and $10 for the public. They are available online through the UI ticket office or at the door 30 minutes prior to performance.
Following Sunday’s matinee, the dance program will host a discussion session for audience members who wish to inquire about the dance-making process.
Melanie Meenan, a UI dance professor, said this year’s concert, which features choreography by faculty and guest artists, focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration.
“We want to be able to reach more people,” Meenan said. “We want to be able to connect better with the community. The goal was to also be able to challenge the definition of dance, challenge the way we view dance and what we think of as dance.”
Meenan said UI dance faculty reached out to other university faculty, students and community members to bring in different elements, such as creative writing, animal studies and stage design.
“Interdisciplinary elements help us to look at our wor k in a new way, connect more with the world,” said Belle Baggs, a UI dance professor. “(Dance) is architecture, it’s physics, it’s music, it’s biomechanics.”
The dance program also partnered with guest artists from DanceBARN, a nonprofit organization committed to bringing dance opportunities to rural communities, Meenan said.
While choreographing “Convergence,” DanceBARN artists came to Moscow near the end of August to interact and collaborate with dance students, the general university and Moscow communities, she said.
Meenan said DanceBARN’s mission is something UI dance wants to focus more on, bridging the gap between the university and the community.
The contemporary dance concert — “Convergence” — is a pre-professional concert, Meenan said, which challenges the students with new creative processes and higher performance expectations.
Meenan said the event serves to further elevate student performance by exposing them to new ways of working and creating dance.
It also serves as a way to publish dance faculty research. When faculty create dance, it needs to be performed and witnessed, Meenan said — it is, in a sense, a way dancers publish their work.
Baggs said she thinks the arts are important to the Moscow community and exposure to the arts is crucial.
She encouraged people to attend “Convergence” to support the students, because dance is a reflection of who people are.
“I hope that what they see challenges the way they look at dance, the way they look at who they are, the way they look at the world,” Baggs said. “Our craft depends upon the human body, and everybody has a human body. They move, and they function, and they express in this world, and really dance is just an amplification of that.”
Jordan Willson can be reached at [email protected]