Till dance do they part
SLIPPERY ROCK — Married life from the perspective of a mature couple will be explored through dance when Slippery Rock University presents the Faculty and Guest Artist Dance Concert at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Miller Auditorium.
Married in real life, Thom and Christine Cobb, associate professors of dance at SRU and Youngstown State University, respectively, will perform "Poppy and Lou," choreographed by Billy Siegenfeld, an Emmy Award-winning professor of dance at Northwestern University and internationally known dancer and choreographer.
This is the first time the husband-and-wife team, married for 34 years and with a combined 60 years of dance performance and teaching experience, has performed choreography by Siegenfeld, who achieved notoriety as director of the "Jump Rhythm Jazz Project" in Chicago.
"Poppy and Lou" is an intimate duet about the long-term relationship of a couple in their golden years. Rhythmic and dynamic in nature, the dance has moments of love, melancholy, fond memories of the past, hope for the future and sadness at the loss of a loved one.
Thom Cobb, who joined SRU in 1978, has received several awards, including the 2008 Outstanding Dance Educator for Post-Secondary Education Award from the National Dance Association. He was instrumental in launching SRU's dance major in 1987 and the dance department two years later.
The evening's performance will include six other works, including excerpts from the groundbreaking Negro Dance Theatre Project. Helanius Wilkins and company members from his Edgeworks Dance Theater in Washington, D.C., will perform the piece, which explores the role of black men in American modern dance.
The SRU Jazz Ensemble will perform music from Broadway's "Sweet Charity."
The concert will include choreography by several SRU dance faculty.
The lineup includes: "Currents" by Tania Isaac, director of Tania Isaac Dance and a former resident dancer at SRU; "Rich Man's Frug Revisited" and "Nothing Ever Worries Me," choreographed by Nora Ambrosio, dance department chair; "Under the Glass Ceiling: If He Were She," choreographed by Nola Nolen-Holland, assistant professor of dance; "Martha was a B-girl," choreographed and performed by Teena Custer, instructor of dance; and "In Her Solitude: Lest We Forget," choreographed and performed by Ursula Payne, professor of dance.
Tickets, available at the door, are $10; SRU students pay $5. Call 724-738-2091.
