Your final chance to make it to a dance show this year is coming up soon. The Department of Speech, Theatre and Dance is presenting the Spring Dance Happening from April 27 through 30.
Over 80 dancers and seventeen different pieces will be presented, according to Susan Taylor Lennon, the UT Department Chair. The performance will begin each night at 8 p.m. in the Edison building. The large rehearsal room will become the stage and rows of chairs will be placed along one wall for the audience.
The line for a seat will start outside as early as seven. Space is very limited. The building is usually packed to its maximum capacity, but the show is always well worth the wait.
For the second half of the show, the dancers and the audience will head across campus to the Plant Hall verandah. Here, the second half of the program takes place. Watching a performance on the verandah is a unique experience.
The audience crowds into the street surrounding the fountain to watch the second half of the concert. Lights illuminate the dancers as they perform on the marble entrance to the building and down on the stairs and, sometimes, up in the pillars.
In this show, there will be a tap piece choreographed by UT senior Liz Paonessa that takes place almost entirely on the stairs.
There are many other seniors who will have their final pieces of choreography in this production.
For the first time, faculty choreographers Linda Lopez and Susannah LeMarquand are choreographing a piece. in this, normally student-run, production.
Their piece is an upbeat mix of popular Broadway tunes.
There will also be a new member of the dance department making her debut in the Spring Happening, except this new dancer is not a human. A live snake will be on stage with the dancers for one piece, and another dance features the hot recent soundtrack from the movie Burlesque.
This is one show you don’t want to miss.
Admission is free.
Sophie Erber can be reached at serber@spartans.ut.edu.