Ursinus College Dance Department Presents Spring Site-Specific Concert

Featuring works by Ursinus dance program faculty choreographers and students, UCDC will explore what it means to make art in 2021 as an act of resilience and hope.

Performances will be held outside of the Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center on the Ursinus College campus and are open only to members of the on-campus Ursinus community, who are required to wear masks and adhere to physical distancing guidelines while watching. The performances are Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. (coinciding with the annual Celebration of Student Achievement); Friday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m.; and Saturday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m.

The concert will include new works by choreographers and adjunct professors Jeannine Osayande and Dunya Performing Arts Company, Joshua Polk, Dana Powers-Klooster, and Professor of Dance Karen Clemente, as well as exciting student choreography for the camera directed by Jeanine McCain, an associate professor of dance.

The show, produced by Clemente, features the work of returning dance faculty artists who have been a mainstay for the department throughout the years—and particularly during the pandemic—leading with their creativity, flexibility, compassion, and good humor.

This year, the UCDC 2021 African Ensemble, directed by Osayande, will focus on a Neo-Traditional mask dance practice from West Africa: the Kakilambe, a harvest mask dance from the Baga people of Guinea.

Lonesome Daydream, choreographed by Powers-Klooster, delves into the inner world of the imagination and the escape and hope it can provide.

Clemente, inspired by the jazz era of the 1920s and 30s and the many artists who have performed versions of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies,” choreographed a tap dance quartet set in front of the dancing statues on the hill outside the Kaleidoscope.

Hip hop artist Polk is “taking it back old school” with some smooth grooves and moves from the 90s.

To round out the program, a collection of films created by students from the dance program’s “Screendance Seminar” explores ideas of self-reflection and envisions a new future.