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The walls of Sacramento State’s University Theater will reverberate with music, dancingand talent during Dance Sites 2007, an annual faculty-student dance concert.

The event, which is a collaboration betweenSac State faculty members, students and members of the outside community, allows faculty members the opportunity to choreograph performances for themselves or students.

The production opened on Thursday and will continue through Dec. 9.

As a community focused event, the performances include everyone from Sac State students and staff members to alumni and guest artists.

Dance Sites began in 1992 as the brainchildof emeritus Dale Scholl and dance professor Linda Goodrich.

This year’s production is directed and choreographed by Lorelei Bayne, with faculty choreographers Nathan Jones, Lisa Ross, Karen Toon, Nolan T’Sani and Melissa

Wynn. The six have also been joined by guest artists and choreographers, Randy Solorio and Jill Stripling.

“It’s really satisfying to bring all of the choreographers together and to see how the students are growing through the rehearsalprocess,” Bayne said.

The show has required a lot of hard work and preparation, and has relied heavily on those involved.

“There are 45 performers in the productionand 10 crew members who are instrumentalin managing the backstage show operations,” Bayne said.

Participating dancers said working with the faculty choreographers has been a positiveexperience.

“It’s amazing because they’re a great resource and help us learn a lot,” said Roxanne Payan, senior dance major. “Dance is hard to be educated in; you have to see it firsthand.”

Auditions for the production were held the first week of school and were open to the entire campus community.

“Everybody is really proud of this performance,” Bayne said. “It has a lot of variety and a lot of talent both on-stage and backstage.”

She said part-time faculty members and guest artists were invited to participate in the creative process as well.

“We wanted to put together different styles and points of view so that the show has a diverse view and appeal for the audience,”Bayne said. “Each piece is its own entity; the direction it takes is up to the choreographer.”

Bayne’s goal for the show seems to have been fulfilled, said audience member and sophomore business major Samantha Couch.

“I really liked the different styles of dance; there wasn’t just one type, they incorporated all of them,” she said. “The lighting was well done. It made the whole show.”

Bayne said student involvement in the program is crucial and will help them tremendously in the future.

“The students’ involvement in this productionis a vital part of their education as dance artists,” Bayne said. “This concert gives students an opportunity to perform on the main stage. The experience will influence how they’ll work in the future; it exposes the students to different movements and to a more fully-produced production with a bigger stage and larger audience.”

This year, there are two contemporary dance pieces in which choreographers took ideas from students and combined the concepts into the pieces.

“If you watch the pieces, they are extremelyin-depth,” Payan said. “Dance is a high performance art. It’s very intense and people don’t give us the recognition we deserve for what we are doing.”

The performance begins with a choreographedpiece by local guest artist and Sac State ballroom dance instructor Solorio. The performance, called “Salsa,” features five couples performing ballroom-style salsa dancing.

Bayne’s piece follows Solorio’s, and offers viewers a completely different dance style. Her dance number, “I Want What I Have Not,” is performed by 11 women and set to Fredric Chopin’s orchestral works.

Bayne described her work as a contemporarydance about longing for different circumstances.

The third dance is produced by Stripling, a returning alumna who has been the directorof dance at Natomas Charter High School for the past 11 years.

She returned to Sac State this semester as a guest artist to produce her piece “Cries and Silence,” which features five women involved in physically challenging work which explores human crisis.

Next, dancers display the work of part-time faculty member, Lisa Ross, which focuseson a collage of French music based on the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec coming to life. The piece, “Mon Coeur,” relies on two male and 12 female dancers to portray Ross’ love of the French language.

“Her dance is a contemporary jazz-based piece that combines elements of musical theater and various French works,” Bayne said.

Sac State ballet professor Nathan T’Sani then entertains the audience with his contemporary ballet piece, “Night Meets Light,” which is based on music by Russian musician Dmitri Shostakovich.

After T’Sani’s piece, the theater becomes alive with noise as Sac State tap dance professor Karen Toon’s tap number “Señorita Soiree” begins.

“The piece features eight women and boasts a little Spanish flair,” Bayne said.

Subsequently, new part-time professor Nathan Jones enters the stage and performs his own solo piece called “River Deep.”

Concluding the show is African-American and modern dance professor, Melissa Wynn’s piece, “Songs of Enchantment” which is based on the book by Nigerian writer Ben Okri.

“I used the book as a jumping off point for the concept of ‘what is reality?'” Wynn said. “I think the closest thing that’s similar in our lives are dreams.”

“I saw Dance Sites in 2005 and immediatelyknew that I wanted to try out the next year,” said Dexter Galang, senior theater major and dancer in “Songs of Enchantment.”

“It’s been so much fun. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. We’ve received so much instruction from very talented faculty and choreographers. It’s been a huge growing experience.”

Being involved in university productions means a lot to professors like Wynn.

“It’s my favorite part of university teaching; I get to work with students in a one-on-one environment,” Wynn said. “I enjoy seeing what they know and how their personalknowledge influences the choreography.”

Positive student interaction with the choreographers isn’t the only key part of running a show; the backstage crew is fundamental too,” Bayne said.

The production relies on the backstage crew to keep the show running.

“The costume designer, Sayuri Nina Pinckard has designed beautiful costumes for the large casts and the production is reallylucky to have her,” Bayne said.

Other choreographers were satisfied with Pinckard’s work as well.

“We worked closely with the costume designer to create a warm weather, village feeling,” Wynn said. “We came up with a cultural design without being very specific…I was really happy with Nina’s costumes; she was able to work collaboratively to create over 70 handmade costumes.”

Design professor Ron Reisner helped coordinate many of the production’s elements,from lighting elements to set pieces.

“Overall, it was a good show,” said audiencemember, Jennifer Lekas, junior recreationaland leisure major. “Some of the pieces lacked consistency and were hard to understand for non-dancers, but the lightingand actual dancing was better.”

“We’ve been working hard since the second week of school. This is the final culmination of three months of intensive rehearsals,” Wynn said. “The production staff has really been superb.”

Dance production technician Marley Morris has been responsible for bringing everything together through organizing and scheduling all of the rehearsal space for the production.

Robyn Franklin, senior dance and communications major and president of the Sacramento State Dance Alliance, said she has really enjoyed being a part of the performance.

“It’s a really good experience because we get to work under a lot of people with lot of different styles,” she said.

Amber Kantner can be reached at [email protected].

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