Stephen F. Austin State University’s dance program will showcase the SFA Repertory Dance Company in Concert, which premieres at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, in Turner Auditorium on the university’s campus.
An additional showing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26. Tickets cost $8 for students, $12 for faculty and staff members and senior citizens, and $15 for general admission and can be purchased at the door. All proceeds benefit the SFA dance program.
The SFA Repertory Dance Company is a select group of 20 dancers that performs and represents SFA locally, regionally and nationally at conferences, recruitment events and a variety of other venues. Dancers are selected through an audition process and have the opportunity to work with guest artists and other professionals in the field of dance.
The production will feature nine choreographic works created by SFA dance faculty members and guest artists, including Jennifer Salter, an artist from Houston who choreographed an intense, athletic modern dance, and Brixey Blankenship-Cozad, an artist from Beaumont who created a high energy, acrobatic hip-hop dance.
The Dimensions Contemporary Ballet Company, which comprises SFA students, alumni, faculty members and non-SFA dancers, also will perform under the direction of Heather Samuelson, co-coordinator of SFA’s dance program and assistant professor.
Samuelson worked on two pieces in the production — one with a trio of dancers performing a contemporary ballet dance to Vivaldi and the second an intense modern dance based on dementia research.
Haley Hoss Jameson, co-coordinator of SFA’s dance program and associate professor, also is presenting two works in the concert. One dance is a quirky modern piece that utilizes the strength of dancers and spoken text. Her second piece is a fun, energetic jazz dance performed in the classic 1980s style with the whole company.
“This dance will definitely amuse the audience and take them back to a time of high-cut leotards, sweatbands and big hair,” Samuelson said.
Adjunct faculty member Sarah Sanchez choreographed an athletic piece for the company.
“Her piece is a structured, contact improvisational dance that displays the dancers’ strength, control, connection to each other, and how movement can evolve organically through touch and manipulation,” Samuelson said. “There are moments of stillness that will draw the audience in deeper to the evolution of the dancers’ movement.”
Sanchez’s piece and Samuelson’s piece on dementia will both be presented at the South Central American College Dance Association Conference in March.
By Kasi Dickerson, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.
