UM dancers move into spotlight

The University of Maine spring dance concert is always a charge, and this year’s program is no exception. Featuring nine works, seven of them choreographed and performed by student dancers and two created by their instructors from the School of Performing Arts, the usually sold-out event promises routines that range from spellbinding to whimsical.

Dance instructor Ann Ross is coordinating the performance event which has become a spring tradition on the Orono campus. It gives the 25 students who minor in dance – the university has no major in the topic – a chance to display their discipline. More than 400 others take some type of dance course yearly on campus. The UM dance program “has an excellent reputation. People want to dance here,” Ross said.

A dance veteran of local stages and well-known for her performance as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Robinson Ballet’s annual “Nutcracker” performances, Ross this year has broken tradition a bit and is emphasizing students’ choreography at the spring finale.

“I have moved away from an emphasis on faculty choreography. It gives students ownership” to plan the routines, according to Ross.

The concert’s opener, “Dance Macabre” features dramatic movement in a fast-moving ballet that spills dancing ghosts and skeletons across the stage. A celebration of All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, the number is choreographed by graduate student Jennifer Branton-Desris of Cardville. Twelve dancers are in the number, including Ross’ 5-year-old daughter, Analies Dyjak, in a cameo appearance.

Cartoonist Charles Schulz’s Linus and Lucy characters take center stage in another dance choreographed by dance student Trevor Bean of Portland.

Senior Danielle Zecker of Newburgh will perform an untitled piece that features a tango theme and several of her drawings as a backdrop.

“Freedom,” an introspective dance, is choreographed and performed by junior Jeremy Towle of Millinocket. The solo first was introduced at the American College Dance Festival held at UM in March.

Samantha Lott of Eliot will appear in two ballets, one the student-created “Paquita Variation” and the second a faculty-choreographed piece danced to the music of Brahms’ “Requiem.”

Ross will appear in a piece tentatively titled “Puppet Time” with an intermediate modern dance class.

Seniors Amber Small of Old Town and Jessica Schlenker of Augusta will perform in their original “Feelin’ So Good” piece, described by Ross as a “funk- jazz” number.

The show closes with instructor Cyd Dyjak’s lively “Just for the Glide,” a modern, all-inclusive number that features “rhythm, live percussion, fabric, slide boards and rollerbladers,” Ross said.

The spring dance concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Hauck Auditorium in the UM Student Union. Tickets are $8 regular, $6 for senior citizens and students of high school age or younger. UM students with ID get in free. Tickets may be obtained by calling the Maine Center for the Arts box office at (207) 581-1755 or 1-800-MCA-TIXX.