*MERIDIAN: Thesis Concert* This spring, the Department of Dance at Case Western Reserve University will continue its 2018-2019 season with Meridian, a thesis concert featuring dance works by MFA candidate Yizhen Hu, with additional works by guest artists and CWRU alumni Karlie Budge and Yidi Lin. Performances are March 28, 29, 30 at 8 p.m. and March 31 at 2:30 p.m. at Mather Dance Center on the Case Western Reserve University campus. Yearning, a solo work choreographed by Hu, explores the experience of people who are trapped by cultural and social restrictions, and find themselves enduring intense external pressure. As they find ways to overcome these forces in order to exert their own viewpoint, the result is finding their own paths and making their own choices. A duet for two men, Synergism, explores two males who both struggle in executing certain movements. Once they come to realize that one person can facilitate another to achieve the movements that the other cannot do, they cooperate and assist each other. Hu’s Amalgamation is an abstract group piece featuring an ensemble of undergraduate and graduate students. With music by Rob Power, the work displays the process of creating a movement idea, developing it, and then reducing it back to the original. Returning to the Mather Dance Center stage is Inevitable, which explores the emotional experiences of death and loss. Hu’s choreography investigates the struggles of grief and the frustrations of helplessness, along with the realization of the unavoidable mortality of human life. Between Us, choreographed by alumni Karlie Budge and Yidi Lin, is a duet in five sections - Sneaking, Frisking, Fleeting, Floating, Seething - portraying the forming and falling out of a relationship. Budge graduated in 2016 earning her BA in dance and Lin graduated in 2016 earning her MFA in dance. The work will be performed by Yizhen Hu and Katie Nabors. Meridian runs March 28, 29, 30 at 8 p.m. and March 31 at 2:30 p.m. All performances take place at Mather Dance Center, 11201 Bellflower Road, on the Case Western Reserve University campus. Tickets are $7 for students with ID, $10 for adults 60+ and CWRU personnel, and $15 for general admission. Reservations are recommended, and may be made by calling (216) 368-5246, or online at dance.case.edu/reservations.