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Spring Into Dance Opens at River Campus

Theatre and Dance Department
/
Southeast Missouri State University
Spring Into Dance poster

Spring Into Dance will shake the River Campus in Cape Girardeau this weekend. The seasonal show opened on April 10th and will last until Sunday, April 13th in the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall.

Choreographed by students and faculty staff, Spring Into Dance is Southeast Missouri State University’s spring dancing event. Two guest artists’ pieces will be performed this semester. The first is choreographed by Sam Watson and called “Sound Effects,” and the other is by Jan Bartosek and called “Building Danger.”

Dance professor Philip Edgecombe said there are nine numbers throughout the show, with as many choreographers, four of them being students.

“All the students have gone through a mentorship process, where they have a faculty member coming to the rehearsals, giving them advice on choreographing process, what they are creating, really help with the assignments,” said Edgecombe.

Then, Edgecombe adds, the students have to audition their work and are evaluated by a panel of faculty members that decides which piece should be in the concert.

Edgecombe explains that the choreographer is responsible for creating the movements, choosing the dancers and the music. Then the choreographer discusses the piece with the costume designer, who will then work on ideas and suggest them to the choreographer. The same goes with the lighting designer, whose goal is to show the dancers.

Many students are involved in the concert, both onstage and behind the scenes. Backstage there are a number of different roles that requires students’ participation, from putting make up on the dancers to pulling up the curtain ropes.

Students from the Theatre and Dance department see Spring Into Dance as a form of preparation for their future in other shows.

“We try to make the production as professional as possible and we run it as professionally as possible so that the students are not surprised when they go out into the world,” Edgecombe explains.

Tickets are for Spring Into Dance are $16, and $3 for students with a SEMO I.D. The concert will be performed again on Saturday April, 12 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m.

 

Marine Perot was a KRCU reporter for KRCU in 2014.