The university celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Bachelor of Arts Dance program
This weekend, dance students of the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Art’s will be presenting their Mainstage Dance performance.
Mainstage is a chance for dance students to show off their hard work in an extracurricular performance
The show will be held at University Theatre located on the U of C Campus grounds March 19, 20 and 21 starting at 8pm.
The U of C is home to one of six dance degree programs across Canada, offering a bachelor degree or minor in dance as well as a choreography and performance concentration.
2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Calgary. Fourth year BA dance student Quinn Kliewer says she’s happy she got to be a part of this year’s performance especially since she will be graduating at the end of the semester.
This year, three full-time faculty teachers, Wojciech Mochniej, Melissa Monteros and Michéle Moss are joining together with a guest artist Milan Kozánek to direct and choreograph the works in the 2015 Mainstage performance.
Michéle Moss, one of the full-time choreographers, is also the artistic director for the performance. Moss choreographed a jazz piece for the performance called, Adventures in Steam and Phunk, that features six dancers. Moss guides the direction of the night, the look, the feel, and how it unfolds.
As a repertoire show, Moss says, “each piece stands on its own, they don’t have to be connected it is not a narrative for the evening, it’s individual worlds. You get to enter a particular world from a particular perspective and then the world shifts, the kaleidoscope goes boom and you’re in another world.”
Fourth year dance student, Quinn Kliewer, strikes a pose during her performance in the Mainstage.
Photo by Bre Brezinski
The production features four works, each created by one of the choreographers and a group of students who went through a competitive audition process to be part of the show.
Each choreographer takes their students on a different journey. In Moss’s work she had a curious vision to explore the movement of steam punk. Moss says she loves the retrospective theme that “pulls from the past and projects us into the future.”
In some other works, like guest artist, Milan Kozanek’s, the featured dancers influence the piece as the dance progresses. “The story begins to bend or change and the focus is impacted by their presence,” says Moss.
Kliewer, who is dancing in Milan Kozánek’s Shiny Metal, explains how metronomes play a large part in his non-stylized work inspired by the dance and non-dance movements of performer’s bodies.
Kliewer says she enjoys the contrast between the works she is in. Kliewer is also performing in Tracings, choreographed by Melissa Monteros. Monteros bases her productions on an interest to explore what connects humans to one another and the mark we leave on the world.
Mainstage has been performed since the early 1970s and it is still going on strong today. Every year there are new challenges to overcome and different aspects that make the show unique. According to Moss, this year “a 30-man choir” will complement the first piece and two live percussionists will be performing on stage as well.
“Each piece has a different and very unique feel and it is a long tradition,” says Moss.
Tickets for the show are available at the U of C Campus Ticket Office located in MacEwan Student Centre on the second floor or online at www.ucalgary.ca/tickets. The show costs $15 for adults to attend and $10 for students and seniors.
Thumbnail photo by Bre Brezinski
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Garrett Harvey at gharvey@cjournal.ca; Bre Brezinski at bbrezinski@cjournal.ca