Siu On Auyeung '10 in "To Have and To Hold"
The Department of Theatre and Dance at Gustavus Adolphus College is pleased to present Balance Off Center: The Gustavus Dance Company in Concert on March 4 and 5 at 8:00 p.m. and March 6 at 2:00 p.m. The annual spring dance concert is co-directed by Assistant Professor Melissa Rolnick and Visiting Assistant Professor Jeffrey Peterson. The concert includes a diverse range of choreography by faculty, selected students and guest artists including Joe Chvala and members of Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theatre.
Balance Off Center includes the culminating performance of the work constructed on 18 students by members of Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater, a company based in Minneapolis which includes 2007 Gustavus graduate Brian Evans. This residency was made possible through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board which also brought the company to Gustavus in September to perform. Stuart Pimsler, Kari Mosel, and Brian Evans, led the group through discussion, improvisation, choreography, and research during January in order to create All of the Others. This emotional work was formed in collaboration with the students in order to find the most poignant moments of “otherness.” As Pimsler’s work is very process oriented, his hope is that the students have been able to “gain information about their own performance range, including their limitations and strengths, and be able to appreciate how the everyday world can inform art making.”
Diminuendo and Ritardando was set on senior Christian DeMarais and sophomore Rush Benson by guest choreographer Joe Chvala of The Flying Foot Forum in Minneapolis. This percussion piece combines skill and comedy and will certainly be one of the audience pleasers in Balance Off Center. Another piece using comedy is Stand Up/Speak Out! choreographed by faculty member Jeffrey Peterson in collaboration with the dancers. Using audio tracks from female stand up comedians, this piece empowers women to speak up for themselves by touching on issues of sexuality, marriage, and beauty.
The director of the concert, Melissa Rolnick, has choreographed a new group work entitled 2×2 and will also be showing a solo performed by Jennifer Walker. Walker is a guest performer from Jackson Hole, Wyoming and is a member of Contemporary Dance Wyoming which commissioned the solo in 2008. Another faculty piece, entitled Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing, was choreographed by Ashleigh Penrod, adjunct professor of dance and graduate of Gustavus in 2004. Penrod set this new work about the neurology of dreams on seniors Amy Hassenstab and Leah McEllistrem, and junior Renee Guittar.
Three student-choreographed works were selected for the concert from On a Whim: Shared Space which was performed and directed by Gustavus students in December. Senior Haley Carpenter choreographed Normality of Abnormality this fall in reaction to the ways in which human relationships are affected by feelings of depression and anxiety. Junior Dance Major Renee Guittar will be presenting a solo titled Temporary and a group piece with five female dancers entitled Need by Want. The group piece will open the concert and focuses on the greed and entitlement that is involved with consumerism in American culture.
Guittar’s Temporary and Rolnick’s 2×2 have been selected by the Theatre and Dance Department to perform at the American College Dance Festival this March. The selected Gustavus pieces will be performed in the adjudication concert receiving feedback from nationally know professionals in the field.
Costume designers for the concert include faculty Larissa McConnell, recent graduate of Gustavus Kristen Weller ’10, student designer senior Robert Croghan and student choreographers Haley Carpenter and Renee Guittar. Lighting and sound design was created by faculty Terena Wilkens.
Tickets are available on-line at www.gustavustickets.com or by calling the Gustavus Ticket Center at (507) 933-7590. Gustavus students and staff free of charge with ID. Tickets not purchased in advance may be purchased at the Anderson Theatre Box Office beginning one hour prior to curtain.