By WILLIAM MUNOZ
University of Montana students walking to class stop to stare. Are they really seeing students dancing at the Gallagher Building courtyard? The students have experienced dancers preparing for the UM Dance Program’s most alternative annual concert: UM Dancers on Location: A Site-Specific Dance Concert. Our culture separates dance from everyday life-most of the time. In UM Dancers on Location, we remove that separation and engage the audience in dance outside in familiar spaces on the UM campus.
This free outdoor concert begins at UM’s Mansfield Library Courtyard and evolves as the audience travels to a different venue on campus for each dance piece. This year, performance locations include the PARTV courtyard, McGill lobby, Gallagher Business Building, Music Building, and the parking garage. UM Dancers on Location features the performance work of over two dozen student dancers.
A large cast of dancers simulate a prison-break along the brick wall of the PARTV building in Dazed & Confused, choreographed by dance professor Karen Kaufmann. Associate Professor of dance Heidi Jones Eggert collaborates with the School of Art ceramics faculty and students in a movement installation using large ceramic pieces. Four dancers collaborate with dance instructor Joy French on an urban-inspired piece in the UM parking garage, where dancers finesse their way through a metal and concrete obstacle course. Student choreographers explore benches, planters, and staircases in a variety of works that showcase the beautiful UM campus.
Choreographers include Karen Kaufmann; Heidi Jones Eggert, Joy French, Wyatt Guerrero, Jordan Freeman, Aria Faddis, Yu-Pai, and Charlie Wiseman.
We invite you to come see the beauty of the UM campus through the eyes of a choreographer and the movement of dancers. You may see it in an entirely new way.
Who: UM School of Theatre & Dance
What: UM Dancers on Location: A Site-Specific Dance Concert
When: Saturday, October 4; Sunday, October 5, 2014, at noon
Where: Meet at the Mansfield Library Courtyard on the UM Campus
Cost: : Free. Call 243-4581 for information