Two performances sell out over weekend

Student choreographers, dancers and composers displayed their work during the combined Senior Dance Festival and Senior BFA Dance Concert over the weekend.

Throughout the two-hour show, lighting, music and choreography combined to immerse the audience in a display of student talent. The music ranged from Enya to intense and synthesized electronic beats to original student compositions, while the dance themes included representations of time, chance, new beginnings, death and more.

The show opened with a piece titled Blinking to the Next, which senior choreographer and dancer Sara Ciampa said represents life’s distractions.

“I would take an everyday movement that I do when I’m getting distracted and then create movement out of that,” Ciampa said on how she created the dance.

During the piece, seven dancers rapidly moved around the floor, bumping into each other, intertwining and returning to individual movements.

A piece based on chance, I Chose to Run, choreographed by senior Sharon Kriz, allowed audience members to determine how the piece was performed based on the roll of a six-sided die. Lighting, music and dance elements of the piece were arranged into three sections and performed in different combinations depending on how the die was rolled.

Alicia Diaz, a former artist-in-residence for the School of Theatre and Dance, was invited back to Kent State by her former students to choreograph a senior piece.

With just three days to work, Diaz helped choreograph a near 10-minute dance.

“It was extremely challenging,” Diaz said. “We had to work very quickly.”

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SDF Student Director Katie Naso helped to ensure clear communication while combining the two programs.

“If I didn’t have so much support and help from everyone, I don’t think it would have come together the way it did,” Naso said.

Contact performing arts reporter Kyle McDonald

at [email protected].