A new dance company, pH Exchange, is putting on free show before its festival debut

There's a new company in Cape Girardeau, and it's giving its product away for free.

In May, Philip Edgecombe and Hilary Peterson started pH Exchange, Cape Girardeau's first professional dance company. They and two other dancers will perform a free hourlong show at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Rust Flexible Theatre as the company's onstage debut.

The married couple said starting a dance company has been a longtime personal goal, and they finally found themselves in a place where they could do it -- Cape Girardeau.

Edgecombe and Peterson have taught at Southeast Missouri State University for the past few years. Both are talented choreographers and dancers and are joined by Southeast dance students Caleb Schaas and Jennica Joseph for the company's first evening-length work, "Coupling and Other Things that Stick to Your Feet."

The performance expands upon Peterson's "Chew, Blow, Pop!" from the 2009 Spring Dance-Apalooza. It develops the work from a funny 15-minute dance skit about bubble gum into a full piece that covers dating, love, breakups and yes, still chewing bubble gum.

If you think you don't like dance, this is the time to find out. You're not spending any money and it's only an hour. If you hate it, you didn't waste any money and can spend the rest of the night doing something you know you like. Besides, I doubt you'll hate it, and everybody likes free stuff.

The show is a dress rehearsal of sorts for a Fringe Festival from Sunday to July 26 where pH Exchange will have its festival debut. They've got the music. They know the moves. They just need an audience to work out the nerves and kinks (that's where the free show comes in).

Fringe Festivals pop up in cities to give small theater and dance companies a chance to express themselves in any creative way possible.

The members of pH Exchange are paying their own way to the Kansas City Fringe Festival While Saturday's show is free, the dancers will happily accept donations if members of the audience would like to help them with the trip.

Look for more about pH Exchange in SE Live after they return from Kansas City and sit still long enough for a feature.