Southeast's Fall Dance Concert lets student choreographers show their stuff

Concerts aren't limited to music. The show in the Rust Flexible Theatre tonight through Sunday will prove it. The Fall Dance Concert is a concert of movement. While there is music, the dancing makes the show. The featured dances range from hip hop to jazz to modern and lyrical.

This year, two faculty members and 10 students have choreographed dances for the show. Unlike Dance-apalooza, the faculty and professionally choreographed dance concert in the spring, the fall concert is mostly for students to show what they've learned.

"Every year we open up and say if you want to choreograph, you can," said Hilary Peterson, a Southeast Missouri State University dance instructor and one of the two faculty choreographers for the show. "Usually it ends up being juniors and seniors because they have the most experience."

This year the show includes two freshman choreographers. One of them has written a ballroom take on Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana."

"We ended up including them because they were just so good," Peterson said.

FRED LYNCH ~ flynch@semissourian.comSEMO Fall Dance Concert

Dana-Leigh Formon, a junior dance and science major, has two pieces in the show. This will be her second time to choreograph for the Fall Dance Concert. One piece, "Parade," is a group piece written specifically for this show. It will end the concert.

Her other piece, "Aftermath," was written as "a reaction to a life experience," Formon said. Specifically, a relationship. "It was one of those complicated [things]," she said.

Formon will be one of the two dancers in "Aftermath" but will be offstage for "Parade."

"We actually tried to encourage them to not be in their own pieces," Peterson said.

Dancing in your own piece can be taxing, and the choreographer can be more objective when she's sitting in front of the stage rather than on it. It also helps rehearsals run faster. The students get more out of the experience, Peterson said, when they "step out and be just the choreographer."

FRED LYNCH ~ flynch@semissourian.comSEMO Fall Dance Concert

The Fall Dance Concert will be at 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Rust Flexible Theater. Tickets are $7 at the River Campus box office or by calling 651-2265 or at MetroTix outlets, online at MetroTix.com, keyword "fall" or by calling toll-free 800-293-5949.

Fall Dance Concert video

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