Hope College’s annual major dance concert, Dance 39, will continue on Thursday–Saturday, March 7-9. All performances start at 8 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland.
Dance 39 is a concert of choreographic work by the Hope dance faculty and featured guest artists Anne-René Petrarca and Sharon Wong, danced by Hope students.
Sharon Wong premieres “Ain’t Life Grand,” inspired by the music of the late 1930s and early 1940s and featuring jazz vernacular influenced by social dances of the era.
Anne-René Petrarca describes her work as “the layers of life's intimacies unfolding, propelling us into the expansion of life.”
Matthew Farmer premieres “Elysium Garden,” with music by Arvo Pärt. Farmer describes the piece is inspired by the Greek myth, noting, “There perhaps is a place called the ‘Elysium Garden’ where the souls of those who pass before their time ascend and wait. They wait until we have accepted their death, and only then are they permitted to continue their journey in the afterlife.”
Crystal Frazier premieres a tribute to Michael Jackson through the art of tap and hip hop dancing.
Steven Iannacone premieres “Strange Arrangements.” Iannacone states, “This work is a movement experience influenced by dolls, high fashion, butoh and the quote from Shakespeare's ‘Macbeth’: ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair.’” The dancers experimented with hyper-reality, exaggeration and distortion to create a world of interchangeable “episodes.” These “episodes” will be re-arranged by the dancers each night to create a new and different “strangeness” for each performance. Also, the sound score will be mixed live each night in an improvisational response to their movement subtly changing the texture of the work.
Julie Powell has reconstructed “Waltz of the Hours” from the ballet “Coppélia” choreographed by Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti in 1884. Powell states, “This is classical ensemble work at its finest... clean, precise and elegant.”
Angie Yetzke, in collaboration with Katherine Sullivan of the Hope art faculty, blends visual art, vocal sound, and movement to present a no-filter process to art interpretation. In researching this project the dancers each chose one of Sullivan’s “Seascape” paintings for free-writing, free-speaking, and free-moving. Personalizing their responses to color, texture and imagery, the dancers join abstract language and gesture to bring mystery to familiarity and familiarity to mystery.
Tickets for Dance 39 are on sale at the ticket office in the main lobby of the DeVos Fieldhouse, and cost $10 for regular admission, $7 for senior citizens and $5 for students, and are free for those 12 and under. The ticket office is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and can be called at (616) 395-7890. Tickets are also available online at tickets.hope.edu/ticketing/
Tickets will be available at the Knickerbocker Theatre on performance nights directly preceding the performance time.
In addition, complimentary tickets are available to area dance studios interested in learning more about the college’s department of dance. More information about the opportunity is available through the ticket office.
The DeVos Fieldhouse is located at 222 Fairbanks Ave., between Ninth and 11th streets. The Knickerbocker Theatre is located at 86 E. Eighth St.