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)