As the annual undergraduate choreography showcase, the Contemporary Dance Concert is always a popular part of the Spring Dance Season at CSULB.  This year’s varied program reflects students’ contemporary views on culture, society, and the art of dance.
 
The featured student choreographers are chosen through a competitive selection process yielding ten unique dances and two dance films for this year’s program. Opening the concert, Ciara Baynes and Wesley Faucher’s duet, “ag cruinniu, pour savoir, move” (meet, know, move), explores the ties of friendship and features a live classical guitar duo. Baker Scholarship recipient Jordan Isadore has created “YoumeIwetheyusthem,” a satirical look at the ideas of originality and conformity with exaggerated high fashion costumes and tribal inspired movement. Yu Kondo’s solo, “No Purple Sky,” provides poignant beauty and describes through movement her personal journey from Japan to the United States. Closing the concert is Hugo Diaz’s “Ollin.” Inspired by the day in the Aztec calendar that signifies movement and growth, this dance uses fourteen dancers in lush movement that interconnects the dancers emotionally and physically. The concert also features films by Megan Shaffer and Jordan Isadore, revealing the constantly evolving creativity and interdisciplinary exploration of our undergraduate dance majors.
 
The 2009 Contemporary Dance Concert runs February 25-27 at 8 p.m. and February 28 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater on Atherton Street. Tickets are $20 for the general public and $16 for students, seniors, CSULB faculty and staff, and DRC members; they are available from the Arts Ticket Office at (562) 985-7000 or online.
 
Parking is available in CSULB Parking Lot 12, adjacent to the Carpenter Center at the corner of Atherton and Palo Verde.