MURFREESBORO, Tenn. —Middle Tennessee State University’s Dance Theatre Company will present their Fall Dance Concert Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 19-21.

The performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Tucker Theatre, located inside the Boutwell Dramatic Arts Building at 615 Champion Way. A searchable campus map is available at bit.ly/2026parkingmap.

General admission tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for senior citizens, and $5 for K-12 students. Tickets are available at www.mtsuarts.com or www.mtsu.edu/theatreanddance. MTSU student tickets are free at the box office on the night of the performance with student identification.     

Each night of performances, a silent auction will be held in the lobby of Tucker Theatre to help raise money for dance program scholarships. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for bidding.

For more information, contact the MTSU Dance program at 615-904-8051 or at [email protected].     

The year’s Fall Dance Concert will feature original choreography developed by faculty, student and guest choreographers in dynamic performance of the distinguished MTSU Dance major program.  

The concert will open with instructor Kim Holt’s ballet piece “Enchanted Frost,” a new take on a holiday classic. The show will also include assistant professor Jee Ahn’s “Not Yet, Still,” a contemporary piece exploring the interplay between sound and movement, where breath and vocal sounds initiate movement, and movement, in turn, generates sound.

Adjunct professor Kevin Amburgey’s contemporary dance “Escape” provokes the question of how we process difficult circumstance, and whether we are escaping from something or toward something.

The fall dance concert will also include two student works, “Tethered,” choreographed by Rylee Mallicoat, and “I don’t own a real table,” choreographed by Maya Siciliano and Emma Sutt.

Mallicoat’s “Tethered” demonstrates the feelings of a constant pull of control and surrender, while “I don’t own a real table”explores the relationship between memory and physical space, such as how a room feels different when someone is missing.

Thanks to the generous support of the MTSU Distinguished Lecture Fund, members of MTSU Dance Theatre also engaged in the creation of “Crevasse,” a new work developed by artists of the Atlanta-based contemporary dance company, staibdance.

Artistic Director George Staib and Executive Director Sarah Hilmer created an original piece, taught masterclasses and led lecture talks during their choreographic residency this semester.

“The range of creative and professional insights imparted to the dancers through the staibdance choreographic residency was transformative,” said associate professor Jade Treadwell, MTSU director of dance.  

Students in the Dance Theatre Company have shown their commitment to the intensive training and rehearsal process that represents an athletic, entertaining and vibrant show, she added.

“The dance guest artist experience provided a wealth of knowledge and inspiration for our students to be invited into the creative practices of the professional landscapes in which they seek to contribute beyond graduation,” Treadwell continued. “The aesthetic of staibdance repertory requires boldness, mastery of movement technique, and artistry, and in the creation of this new works, the dancers in this cast display those elements cohesively integrated in the performance of ‘Crevasse.'”

The show concludes with “ROMP,” a new work choreographed by Treadwell. The piece invites the audience to explore the vibrant, energetic community of cave dwellers, performed by MTSU’s Dance Theatre Company.

Guided by an original script devised by MT Imagine Animation Studio artists, the dancers were involved in the initial choreographic process for a multiphase immersive performance and animation collaboration called “LIGHT.” “ROMP” is an excerpt from a larger collaborative work in progress, “LIGHT,” with associate professor of animation Rodrigo Gomez and MT Imagine Animation Studio, set to be performed in May 2027.

About George Staib  

Born in Tehran, Iran, George Staib is of Armenian descent and moved to the United States at age 10. He began his dance training at Dickinson College and the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet before earning an MFA in dance and choreography from Temple University.

His performance credits include several dance companies, notably the José Limón Dance Company. Since 2001, Staib has taught contemporary dance, ballet and choreography at Emory University.

He has served in leadership roles with the American College Dance Association and Dance/USA. His choreography and teaching have been commissioned nationwide, earning him recognition from Dance Teacher Magazine as one of the country’s top five dance educators. He also contributes arts writing and criticism to ArtsATL.

— DeAnn Hays ([email protected])