[NEohioPAL] CWRU Dance Presents With Gratitude: April 15-18

Tue Mar 17 05:00:00 PDT 2026

CWRU Department of Dance Presents Spring 2026 Concert: With Gratitude

Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Dance announces its final
production of the 2025-2026 season. With Gratitude is a special concert
celebrating 50 years of the Graduate Dance Program at CWRU that includes
five works representing alumni from each decade of the program’s history.
It also includes a large‑scale dance for over 40 alumni co-choreographed by
Department Chair Karen Potter and Artistic Director Gary
Galbraith. Rounding out the program are two group works by current graduate
students (performed April 15–17 only).

With Gratitude will be presented April 15–17 at 7:30 PM, and April 18 at
7:00 PM at Mather Dance Center, 11040 Bellflower Road, on the Case Western
Reserve campus in University Circle. The April 18th performance has a
limited number of tickets for sale.

January Thirtyfirst

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.

Chasing Unison

Chasing Unison choreographed by Joseph Teeter (MA 2020), is a quartet set
to two movements of Bach’s Art of the Fugue. The dancers abstractly
visualize the four musical voices, including Bach’s use of inversion,
augmentation, and diminution in the second fugue. Against this intricate
structure, the dancers search for moments of unity as the work builds to an
intense conclusion.

Untitled Chopin Solo

This solo is a music-driven exploration of encounter and transformation
choreographed by Christopher Bell (MFA 2012). 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.

Dancer in Black with Bow

Dancer in Black with Bow created by Janet Meskin (MFA 1983) 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.

The Burghers of Calais

Choreographed by Karen Potter (MFA 1989), the dance was inspired by Rodin’s
sculpture The Burghers of Calais and the story of the siege of the city of
Calais orchestrated by England’s King Edward III in 1346.

Shining Tribute

Shining Tribute was created by the department’s long time faculty Karen
Potter with Gary Galbraith during the University’s celebratory bicentennial
year to honor alumni of the Graduate Dance Program. It proudly features 40+
alumni from each of the five decades of dance including some of the first
degree recipients as well as recent graduates. Twenty alumni are featured
via video while many more will perform in person including several who are
traveling from across the country for this milestone event. It is dedicated
to the alumni of the graduate program.

Walk it Off

Walk it Off, choreographed by Lucia Mancha, is an abstract trio dance
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. Harkening to 20th century
approaches to choreography explored by many artists, simple chance methods
were used to determine the inclusion and order of select movements and
phrases.

Threshold

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

Ticket Information

Tickets are $15 for CWRU students with ID, $20 for seniors age 60+, CWRU
personnel and non-CWRU students, and $25 for general admission.

Online Ticket Purchase for With Gratitude

Wednesday, April 15, 7:30 p.m.
<https://cglink.me/2cS/r2276581>Thursday, April 16, 7:30 p.m.
<https://cglink.me/2cS/r2276582>Friday, April 17, 7:30 p.m.
<https://cglink.me/2cS/r2276583>Saturday, April 18, 7 p.m.
<https://cglink.me/2cS/r2276584> (gala performance, no student tickets and
limited ticket sales)
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