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Live Arts Events Return to Campus with Free Dance Faculty Concert

September 9
Aug 25, 2021

The Center for Creative and Performing Arts returns to presenting live performances and other arts events on campus with a Faculty and Guest Artist Dance Concert on Thursday, September 9 at 7:30 pm in the Sophia Gordon Center. Admission is free, but advance registration is encouraged at www.salemstatetickets.com. The concert will run for 1 hour with no intermission. Masks are required to be worn indoors by all attendees per university COVID-19 safety protocols.

This concert will feature original works by Salem State dance faculty Betsy Miller, Meghan McLyman, Michelle Deane, and Laila Franklin and alumni Lindsey McGovern and Jake Crawford.

McGovern and Crawford have choreographed works to texts by Elisabeth Weiss, Museum Sculpture Garden and Cathy Fahey, To the Young Girl in the Torn Dress. These pieces were premiered at the 2021 Mass Poetry Festival.

Miller and McLyman are also creating work with Salem State dance alumni and faculty from other university departments. Miller’s piece is the premiere of a 3-part work in collaboration with professors Phil Swanson, music and JD Scrimgeour, English. The first section is set to Swanson’s original composition The Restless Seas, performed by dance alumni. This is followed by a section performed by Miller, with spoken word by Scrimgeour and music by Swanson that blends elements of the game's telephone and exquisite corpse. The improvisatory final movement is based on elements of the first two sections.

McLyman’s piece, What Matters Most?, is created in conjunction with art + design faculty Ken Reker and pianist Karen Gahagan, Center for the Arts. This interactive work will begin in the lobby prior to the concert where the audience will be asked to engage with Reker's work in order to answer the question “What concerns or questions are at the forefront of your mind today?” Selections from Chick Corea’s Children’s Songs accompany this piece. 

Upcoming events for the fall semester include the reopening of the Winfisky Gallery featuring work by Salem State’s art + design faculty through September 17 and the return of the Salem State Writers Series with guest Ernesto Quiñonez on October 14. The theatre department returns to the stage with a production of Sarah Ruhl’s “Orlando,” October 14-24, while the music department presents two concerts in October, the “Boston Village Gamelan” on October 10 and a music faculty recital on October 21.

Visit www.salemstate.edu/arts for the full fall schedule of events.

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