MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance will again showcase the power of expressive movement when it presents the upcoming Spring Dance Concert.

This year’s performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, April 18-20, at Tucker Theatre inside the Boutwell Dramatic Arts Building at 615 Champion Way. A searchable campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap. 

General admission tickets are $10 or $5 for K-12 students and seniors. They are available at mtsu.edu/theatreanddance. MTSU students can attend for free with a current student ID. 

This year’s Spring Dance Concert will be performed by the pre-professional company, MTSU Dance Theatre, and showcases faculty and guest artist choreography that explores themes ranging from personal transformation, coping with personal trauma as the world carries on, exploring the athleticism of movement and the exploration of relationships. 

With the generous support of the MTSU Distinguished Lecture Fund, members of MTSU Dance Theatre engaged in creating “What Lies Between” with Nashville-based guest artist Becca Hoback. 

During a weeklong residency with MTSU’s Dance Program, Hoback shared her professional journey as a choreographer in the Middle Tennessee region and abroad. 

Jade Treadwell, assistant professor and director of dance, said the choreographic residency with Hoback was “artistically stimulating” for students by “extending beyond their experiences with the contemporary dance theatre aesthetic.”

Treadwell also choreographed “Mettle,” which will be featured in this year’s Spring Dance Concert. It is a contemporary modern dance work employing the athleticism of individual, partnered, and collective tenacity. 

Thematically, the movement generated for “Mettle” derived from exploring the juxtaposition of resistance and persistence in the dynamic of a relenting routine. 

Additional MTSU faculty works that will be featured include lecturer Alexandra Winer’s new work “Accept My Lies.” Winer said the piece is inspired by the designed breakdown of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s piece “Can’t Help Myself” and explores the question, “When it feels like your life is falling apart but the world keeps going, what do you tell yourself to carry on?“

Instructor Kim Holt also choreographed a contemporary ballet work titled “4 Short Stories.” Her work explores creating dances that are not intertwined or dependent on one another but have an underlying theme of relationships and connection. 

Members of the MTSU Arts Patrons Society are invited to a special reception before Thursday night’s opening performance. For more information about joining the Patrons Society, contact College of Liberal Arts Development Director Meredith Kerr at 615-898-5223 or Meredith.Kerr@mtsu.edu.

For more information, contact the MTSU Dance program in the College of Liberal Arts at 615-904-8051 or dance@mtsu.edu.

About Becca Hoback

Hoback is a freelance dance artist, performer, collaborator and choreographer based in Nashville. She developed Enactor Productions to create works that unpack what it means to be a human being having a relationship with your body.

She is passionate about promoting physical awareness, empathy and empowerment through movement workshops. The solo work she has curated, collaborated on and choreographed has been programmed locally in Nashville and internationally at festivals and residencies in Europe and the Middle East. 

In 2020, she received a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for her solo work. Hoback also received the writer’s choice for “Best Movement Artist” in Nashville Scene’s 2022 “Best of Nashville.” 

— DeAnn Hays (deann.hays@mtsu.edu)