On Thursday, April 17, 2008, West Chester University’s Dance Company premiered its spring production called “Breaking Pointe” in Asplundh Concert Hall. The University Dance Company put on two productions a year. Faculty primarily choreographs the fall production and the students primarily choreograph the spring production. Out of the 11 scenes in this spring production, only three were created by faculty or a guest choreographer.
“Breaking Pointe” featured hip hop, modern, jazz, tap and improvisationed dance. Their performances without a doubt deserves five out of five stars.
The first scene was “The Lioness Hunt” from “The Lion King,” featuring exquisite costumes and dancing. This was followed by “Be the Change.” It featured “Waiting on the World to Change” by John Mayer and “With My Own Two Hands” by Ben Harper. Behind the dancers during this scene were pictures of West Chester University’s organizations participating in community service.
Although the dance featured slow and careful footwork, it matched the music and theme perfectly and created a flawless routine
After a start with slow music, it quickly heated up during the third scene with music by Delerium. During this scene, dancers dressed like fairies exhibited their more intense dance moves.
Their dance steps became more rigorous and demanding, especially when it came to some of the dancers picking up other dancers.
The fourth act was another Cirque Du Soliel equally as intriguing. The choreography was perfect with the song as the dancers and music became one. It is obvious that the dancers did not just dance to the music – they felt the music.
The fifth act was highly humorous, featuring a 1950s style theme joined by music, dance and costumes. When it seemed like it could not get any better, the audience turned around to see some of the dancers in the aisles.
After a short intermission, a sultry dance followed in which the dancers were allowed to improvise their moves. This proved to the audience what they saw all night: these dancers were truly talented. The dancers and the music, once again, were not separate, but incredibly in sync.
Following this dance, the dancers performed to a song by Rihanna called “Push Up On Me.” It was fast paced, upbeat, and once again, well done. This was one of the dances throughout the night that featured males, who showed their skills through performing handstands and break dancing.
The eighth dance was another astounding performance. It was slow, methodic and robotic, but in an artistic way. Everything was synchronized beautifully.
This dance was followed by a tap dance routine to the song “Volcano” by Jimmy Buffet which provided smiles and lightened the audience’s hearts after such a serious dance.
The tap dance routine was followed by another phenomenal dance to music by Pink Floyd. This was arguably one of the most rigorous dances out of the entire night.
The dance moves were taken up an entire level of difficulty as dancers were required to leap through the air, walk on each others’ backs and perform other difficult dance moves. One part featured a female being thrown through the air and caught by her peers.
The amount of trust that the dancers had for one another was incredible and displayed numerous times throughout this routine.
The final routine was to the song “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from the musical Hairspray. This routine featured the entire cast not only on the stage, but also in the aisles again.
As the curtain closed for the night, the audience roared with applause.
The only problem about the production was the stage crew. They took far too long to move from one scene to the next.
Overall, the production gets five out of five stars. There was obviously a lot of time and effort put into making this dance and it was displayed through the dancers’ dedication and accuracy of their routines.
Jenn Halligan is a first-year student majoring in secondary education with a minor in Spanish. She can be reached at JH653435@wcupa.edu.