The Glenn Korff School of Music’s dance program presents their annual Evenings of Dance performances Feb. 12-15 in the Lied Center for Performing Arts’ Johnny Carson Theater.
Performances are Feb. 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 general and $7 students and will be available soon (website to be announced).
This is the 21st anniversary of the renaming of the spring dance concert to Evenings of Dance. This year’s performances are directed by Associate Professor of Dance and Dance Area Head Susan Levine Ourada. The associate director of Evenings of Dance is Associate Professor of Practice in Dance Hye-Won Hwang.
Evenings of Dance features students performing in works by faculty and guest artists. It also includes the student-choreographed pieces that have moved forward to the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Regional Conference that students and faculty attend each spring.
Guest choreographers this year include adjunct hip-hop instructor Katie Heckman, a 2011 UNL dance graduate who moved to New York City and danced there professionally until returning to Lincoln, and Millie Heckler, who is recently from Vermont and has performed around the world. Faculty choreographers include Ourada and Hwang.
“I loved having the opportunity to work with both of our guest choreographers,” said senior dance major S.J. Eschliman of McCook, Nebraska. “Millie Heckler’s residency gave me the opportunity to have a week of miscellaneous hip-hop and house dance classes. I was given the honor of being cast for Katie Heckman’s guest artist piece and have nothing to say about her but amazing things. Katie has refreshed my love for modern contemporary, and we have bonded over our love for the UNL dance program, as she is a proud alumna herself.”
Heckman’s piece is titled “Into the Depths.”
“The piece is a quartet, primarily inspired by the way I love to move as a dancer,” she said. “It’s contemporary/modern, a mix of using the dancers’ cornerstones of their technical training and improvisation.”
Heckman appreciated the chance to return to UNL as a guest choreographer and instructor.
“It felt like coming back home to something I know so well, but re-familiarizing myself with a new space (My college dance days were spent in Mabel Lee Hall) and new faces,” she said. “It’s like a proud big-sister moment to see how the program has expanded and flourished and showing the university how the arts, especially dance, are showing up and demanding they be seen. Teaching hip-hop this semester is like the cherry on top. Dance showing its versatility and depth as a program and the range of talent in these dancers that can go from modern and ballet to hip hop to other various styles.”
Returning for Evenings of Dance is a true full-circle moment for her.
“Life has ways of coming full-circle and returning to choreograph for Evenings of Dance has been one of those secular moments for me,” Heckman said. “The complete EOD experience—working and rehearsing with choreographers, tech week in the theater, multiple nights of performances, strike, etc., is giving dancers a real-world glimpse into what a working professional dancer might experience outside of school, and it wasn’t until I was living and dancing in New York city post-graduation that a lot of my performances reminded me of how formal and professional dance at UNL curates our EOD show.”
Heckman returned to Lincoln in June 2018 and teaches full-time at Pas De Deux School of Dance, formerly Karen McWilliams School of Dance, where she grew up training as a student.
“I have also been involved with Lincoln Christian’s High School dance team as a co-choreographer for their competition pieces and help at Messiah Lutheran with an after-school dance program twice per month,” she said.
The student choreographers include Talia Markussen, Meg Brady and Eschliman.
Brady’s piece is titled “Impressionism” and features lighting design by Reece McAdams.
“My work features 12 dancers and draws parallels between my time in the dance program and the Impressionist artistic movement,” said Brady, a senior dance and environmental and sustainability studies senior from Overland Park, Kansas. “I focus on using movement to convey how this time of my life looks from the outside compared to how it felt. The piece includes audio clips of videos from different memories that I associate with the dance program to try and bring the audience into the joy I’ve felt being involved in this program for the last four years.”
Brady said Evenings of Dance is a special show because it showcases student, faculty and guest choreographer’s work.
“I think it’s really special to see how the faculty’s own artistic style has impacted student’s voices and also how our students interact with outside artists,” she said.
Brady said it’s also sentimental since, as a senior, it’s her last time performing in Lincoln with this class of seniors.
“Last year I said goodbye to three of my very best friends at Evenings of Dance, and it was a very emotional day,” she said. “This year it feels like goodbye to the entire program, which is sad, but it’s such a special and gratifying weekend.”
She is excited for her piece to be performed at the ACDA conference.
“This has been a dream of mine since I was a freshman,” Brady said. “I’ve been lucky enough to dance in pieces that have gone to ACDA, but being able to send your own work is so surreal. Especially as a senior, it feels so bittersweet to end my dance career at UNL by sharing a piece with other schools in our conference about what this program has meant to me.”
Markussen’s piece is titled “Within Arm’s Reach” and features lighting design by Savannah Stermer.
“’Within Arm’s Reach’ explores the consequences of hyper-individualism,” said Markussen, a junior dance and advertising and public relations major from Omaha, Nebraska. “My choreography investigates how overly prioritizing the self-obstructs connection, and how community often reveals itself only at the moment we’ve already pulled away.”
Markussen said this performance is important to her development as a choreographer.
“It gives me the opportunity to expand on a piece for an extended period of time,” she said. “I am eager to add and change things that will enhance my piece further. As a dancer, now that I have the movement in my body, Evenings of Dance really allows me to really embody what I am doing.”
Markussen will also perform in several pieces, including Heckler’s piece.
“Working with Millie felt like a dream, to say the least,” she said. “Something that I believe I benefited from during her residency here was seeing someone outside of my everyday life be so dedicated and passionate about their craft. As an artist, it is easy to be convinced what you are doing is worth nothing, but Millie coming to our program added fuel to the fire of my passion for dance.”
She is also looking forward to showcasing her work at the ACDA conference.
“To have my piece move forward to ACDA is not only an honor, but also a full-circle moment,” Markussen said. “The community I have found here in this program is unmatched, and as I developed my piece, I even struggled with feeling like I was not part of any community. Ironically enough, after dropping my sorority, I realized the community was right in front of me all along. This program truly has a big place in my heart.”
Eschliman’s piece is titled “Impending” and features lighting design by Abbie Phelan.
“’Impending’ is my own attempt at creating the embodiment of the feeling of impending doom,” she said. “The stark lighting of the piece represents sudden feelings of apprehension and creates somewhat of a ‘deer in the headlights’ feeling for not only the dancers, but the audience as well. The dancers each have a gloved hand that initiates and shapes a lot of their movements. The gloved hand of the dancers represents the ‘doom’ that is impending.”
Eschliman is grateful for the opportunity to have the piece performed at both Evenings of Dance and the upcoming ACDA conference.
“The faculty of the dance program had many amazing pieces to choose from, and it is truly an honor to have my piece be one of them,” Eschliman said. “I am looking forward to showcasing my dancers as well as my own hard work throughout the past couple of semesters. Going to ACDA also means getting to make connections in the dance world and take all kinds of dance classes that may be new to some of us from dance instructors who have a lot to offer in this time of learning.”
Markussen said audiences should expect a diverse array of works in Evenings of Dance.
“The work you will see at Evenings of Dance is work that has been made with pure love and dedication,” she said. “No two pieces you will see this year will be the exact same, and I think this is proof of how diverse an environment that is being cultivated in our program.”
Heckman said Evenings of Dance is an opportunity to support the arts at UNL.
“It’s a gorgeous marriage of guest and staff choreographed work and highlights of students’ pieces from their Student Dance Project from the first semester,” she said. “And it’s a chance to see what UNL dance is all about.”