Senior Dance Majors Celebrate Their 'Golden Year'

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The premiere of original works by five soon-to-graduate Northwestern University dance majors will explore their undergraduate years and the future ahead of them. The new dances will be staged for audiences during the 2012 Senior Dance Concert: “The Golden Year” in mid-May.

The seniors will also perform a work created for them by Chicago choreographer and Artist-in-Residence, Stephanie Martinez Bennitt.

Performances will take place at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 17; 8 p.m. Friday, May 18; and 8 p.m. Saturday, May 19, in the Ballroom Theatre of Northwestern’s Marjorie Ward Marshall Dance Center, 10 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus. The concert and an admission-free reception following the Friday, May 18 evening performance are open to the public. 

“The Golden Year” is the final project of Northwestern senior dance majors under the guidance of School of Communication dance program faculty advisors Susan A. Lee, Annie Beserra and Billy Siegenfeld.

The seniors choreograph, produce and perform in the concert, which concludes their undergraduate studies and serves as an introduction of their work to the professional dance community. It also marks their last public performance as students on the Evanston campus. 

This year’s concert is choreographed and produced by seniors Britt Banaszynski, Danielle Kipnis, Meg Morrissey, Aly Quigley and Christy Stallknecht and performed by a cast of 20 Northwestern undergraduate student dancers.

Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. Tickets, which are $5 for students and $10 for the general public, can be purchased through the Theatre and Interpretation Center Box Office at (847) 491-7282. Tickets will also be available for purchase at the door, a half-hour prior to each of the three evening performances.