CWRU Department of Dance

With Gratitude opens TONIGHT! We will be presenting works from current grad students as well as works from the past 5 decades. From the 1990's we will present, Burghers of Calais. This masterpiece was choreographed by Department Chair, Karen Potter.

Premiered first as a solo in 1998, in Cleveland, then as a trio in 1999, in Brooklyn. This week/werkend, 6 performers will bring this dance to life ( including 2 musicians).

The dance is inspired by a moment in history when six men volunteered to sacrifice their lives to save their city. With the city of Calais under siege and with no other options for hope, the elder burghers had no choice but to accept the terms of surrender to save their dying kinsmen. They were forced to leave their walled city with the keys to the city in hand and nooses upon their necks prepared to die.

This concert is going to be incredible! Can't wait to see all the dancers, and dances take the stage. Come join us as we celebrate 50+ years of graduate dance at CWRU.

Tomorrow we open, With Gratitude, celebrating the 50+ years of the CWRU Graduate Dance Program! The solo, Untitled Chopin, choreographed by Chris Bell ( ) for his 2012 thesis concert, will be performed Wednesday- Friday by Graduate student, Lucia Mancha () & Saturday by Chris himself.

This solo is a music‑driven exploration of encounter and transformation. It visualizes the experience of moving toward something, allowing it to shape the body, and then choosing to walk away altered by the exchange. Through shifts in tone, weight, and musicality, the work traces how contact leaves an imprint, revealing change not as a single moment but as a quiet accumulation of what we let affect us.

Come watch this amazing solo performed by these two fabulous artist! It will be 4 days of Dance, history, and Celebration!!

It's concert week, & along with presenting dances from the 5 decades, & an all Alumni piece, there will be a premier piece titled, Walk it Off, by current 2nd Year Grad Student, Lucia Mancha

Walk it Off is an abstract trio dance work initially inspired by the accompanying music composition. Beginning softly and void of all rhythm or tempo, the music gradually layers to create a pulsing melody. Mancha works to acknowledge this progression by matching and opposing it using varying movement dynamics. Simultaneously, each dancer performs a distinct sequence of choreography, that occasionally overlap, to highlight their individuality. Finally, simple chance methods were used to determine the inclusion and order of select movements and phrases. 

This Concert, With Gratitude, will be an amazing night of Dance! We are so excited to share this with everyone.

Next week not only will we be featuring dances from the past 5 decades from our Graduate Program, we will also be featuring current 2nd Year Grad Students new works. Pictured here is, Threshold, Choreographed by Ziyue Wei (2nd year graduate student).

Ziyue Wei’s Threshold is a dance that considers the tension between restriction and freedom. With a set framed by boxes and columns, four dancers stay in and out of the structure, showing resistance, restriction, curiosity and eventual release. Between the interior restriction and the freedom outside, the work questions what we hold onto and what it becomes when we go beyond the frame.

Just a few days away to the fabulous Concert.

Can't wait to see all these dances and dancers on stage next week.

Another fabulous dance that will be performed next week in, 'With Gratitude," is a piece by Janet Meskin (MFA 1983), Dancer in Black with Bow (Premiere 1983).

Dancer in Black with Bow is on a path of oneness.  There’s an energy force that attracts the dancer and bow to release the imagistic arrow through space. Repetition and simplicity open to the true nature of the flight of the arrow.

It's an amazing solo highlighting the early years of the graduate program at CWRU, and it's continued success!!

Next week during the "With Gratitude " Spring Concert we will be featuring, January Thirtyfirst (Choreography by Lin Batsheva Kahn). January Thirtyfirst expresses mutual anticipation, helplessness, anxiety, support, and acceptance experienced with loss and grief. The poetic text Kahn (MA 2003) wrote about that day coupled with the concerto used to accompany the dance creates an emotional arc across the various stages of grief. Created in 2003 for Kahn’s CWRU Masters project, the piece has been performed by many professionals at various international venues, deeply moving audiences.

Next week, we open—With Gratitude—our Spring Concert celebrating 50 years of the Graduate Dance Program. Alumni from around the world and current students come together to create a weekend of pure magic.

Featured on the concert is Chasing Unison, a work by Joe Teeter (Class of 2020), whose thesis concert was cut short because of COVID. This week, the dance finally premieres as it was meant to be seen—brought to life with a full four-piece quartet performing live alongside the dancers on stage.

Join us in honoring the past, celebrating the present, and moving boldly into the future. ✨

Today we want to highlight, Amanda Clark Tanruther (MFA 2015).

Amanda is a Cleveland based dancer and educator and was a recipient of the 2023 NDEO Outstanding Dance Educator PK-12 (Established) Award. She earned her MFA in Contemporary Dance in 2015 from Case Western Reserve University with the Henry Kurth Award for Theatrical Excellence and the Grace Petot Award for Research Excellence. While at CWRU Clark performed in the Netherlands as a part of earning the Eva L Pancoast Fellowship and continued performing in the NL and internationally following graduation. Her BFA in Dance Education was earned at Kent State University with the award of Outstanding Educational Leadership. In the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Clark is the Director of Dance at Cleveland School of the Arts and Department Chair of Theater, Dance, and Creative Writing. She began performing Sarah Morrison’s works as a company member of MorrisonDance beginning with Out on The Town at the San Diego Fringe Festival in 2014 and remains a company member presently. Clark has performed works by choreographers Jiri Kylian, Hans Van Manen, Rutkay Ozpinar, Min Hee Bervoets, Pascal Rioult, Gary Galbraith, Karen Potter, Mark Morris, and more. She is currently an EdD Candidate at Kent State University with research focusing on equitable access to quality arts education in the United States.

Congrats to Amanda on all her success and continued contributions to the world of dance!

Extra special company warm up class taught today by Department Chair, Karen Potter. Today's the last performance of the MFA Thesis Concert, Eclectic!!
Three years of countless late nights, revisions, breakthroughs, and wins.

So proud to celebrate Maizy, Noah, and Megan as they move one step closer to earning their MFA's.

Here’s to the process, the growth, and everything that comes next. 🎓✨

M***e for an amazing concert today. Congrats to all the dancers in Eclectic!!