Theatre, dance hold hands

For the first time, two performance giants of this campus have "joined forces." \nIU's theatre and dance departments co-produced this year's faculty concert, which opened Thursday and continues at 8 p.m. today in the Ruth N. Halls Theatre. The concert culminates with a piece which reflects bringing people together -- appropriately titled "Joining Forces."\n2002 was the first year for the dance minor program in the Department of Kinesiology run by Director Liz Shea, the dance minor faculty concert was born. \nProfessor George Pinney of the Theatre Department, who had previously worked with Shea on the Independent Major Program dance performance and musical theater majors, collaborated on the concert by choreographing a piece. \nPinney said he and Shea keep in constant contact. \n"We really enhance each other's work," he said.\nHe added that theater and dance tend to go hand in hand. Both are performance programs, and students concentrating on one area tend to take classes in the other. \nBecause of all this overlap, the theater and dance departments co-produced this year's faculty concert, which opened Thursday and continues at 8 p.m. today in the Ruth N. Halls Theatre.\n"I think the collaboration came out of the fact that dance was happening in so many places here," She said. "There's strength in numbers."\nJunior Amanda Tanguay, an IMP dance performance and musical theatre major, has appeared in all three of the dance concerts.\n"The collaboration between the departments is really a neat thing," she said. "Dancers must be able to act through their faces and bodies. And actors should study dance because it is a different way to use movement to show emotion."\nThere's a natural synergy between the dance and the theatre programs, Pinney said.\nHis piece, in which Tanguay will appear this year, is titled "Running From Myself." Pinney said it tells the story through dance of a man confused by what paths to follow in life.\n"It's about how through our lives, we miss moments," Pinney said. "Because of those missed moments, we wind up going down a wrong path emotionally. We don't realize how precious some of the paths that come into our lives are."\nThe main character in the dance encountered a perfect relationship that ended badly. He stumbles onto the precarious path of bars, booze and numbing one-night stands.\n"The dance centers on a night at the bar with his wingman," Pinney said. \nWithout acting skills, the dancers' movements would seem random and out of context, he said. \nUndergraduate and graduate theater students, musical theater majors and dance performance majors all appear in his piece.\nBy including accessible themes in their choreography, professors such as Shea and Pinney said they hope to share that connection with students studying other fields.\nThe last piece of the concert, "Joining Forces," was choreographed by guest artist Debbie Knapp, a member of the University of New Mexico dance faculty. Tanguay said it is about bringing together different types of people and styles of dance to create a single piece of choreography. \n-- Contact Staff Writer Stacey Laskin at slaskin@indiana.edu.