The Ohio State University's Department of Dance to Present DANCE DOWNTOWN, 11/14-15

The Ohio State University's Department of Dance presents Dance Downtown: Solace and Mirth Friday, Nov. 14 and Saturday, Nov. 15 at the Riffe Center's Capitol Theatre, 77 South High St. Performance times are: 10:30 a.m. Friday (young people's concert) and 8 p.m. Friday. On Saturday, a 7 p.m. conversation with the choreographers will be followed by an 8 p.m. performance.

Solace and Mirth showcases the creative research of professors and visiting artists and features undergraduate and graduate dance majors. This year's dance works are vibrant, soulful and playful, a reflection of the four featured choreographers:

• Danish guest choreographer and street dancer Tine Salling stretches the boundaries of how street dance or urban dance can be seen on the contemporary concert stage. In The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Salling makes commentary on the social conventions of love as seen from afar and affected by online, social networking and internet dating.
• Guest artist and internationally known choreographer and author Susan Rethorst brings her musings on human behavior to the stage in the highly detailed, nuanced, rambunctious and slightly irreverent post-modern piece New Lucy. In this work dancers toss themselves and others about in a non-narrative series of scenes.
• Resident artist and faculty member Michael Kelly Bruce re-creates an older work, inspired in large part by the 16th century chorale work of Josquin Des Prez and drawing from an older Latin hymn by Thomas Aquinas. The large cast moves in powerful formations to conjure a sense of a mysterious journey to another time and place.
• Ann Sofie Clemmensen, resident artist from Denmark, creates a new work for her cast of undergraduate dance majors inspired by the physicality found in outdoor games from the 1940-1970s and the ever-changing imaginary world of a child. In Name of the Game, Clemmensen explores playfulness and humor through rhythm, voice and vigorous movement phrase work.

For ticket information, go to dance.osu.edu or call the Ohio State Theatre Box Office (614) 292-2295.

Photo by: Stephanie Matthews

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