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The UNK Student Dance Workshop will continue on as planned. The workshop, a smaller version of the spring dance concert, is made up of students and alumni from the dance composition class offered at UNK.

“Most of our dance department has some role in it,” said Lexi Powell, a senior theater major. “Probably around 15-20 people and a couple extras that just wanted to try out dancing for the year.” 

Powell is also taking on the role of co-stage manager for the production.

Powell, along with Emma Newman, a senior theater major, are working together to make the workshop happen. Their duties include creating posters along with helping to set up the live stream to open the dance to a wider range of people, including those in isolation or quarantine.

Students from the composition class create their pieces based on movements and words they discuss during class. Then they turn these ideas into a conceptual dance piece created by the students. Alumni have freedom in their choreography and concepts.

Powell is also an alumni of the composition class, and she has created her own piece for the workshop as well.

“A lot of the fairytales we know usually have a darker backstory than the ones that we tell kids today,” Powell said. “So I’m taking both the happy version and the darker version and creating a piece to show that not everyone is always as happy as they put out that they are.”

She hopes the piece is able to take an indirect and lighter approach to the dark subject matter, a direct contrast to pieces from the past.

The safety of dancers is a high priority for everyone involved. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, masks are currently required for all dancers during rehearsal hours until UNK moves into Phase 3 of its current pandemic response plan.

Powell is trying to maintain distance between her dancers as much as possible, and is abstaining from most partner choreography.

“I’m looking forward to seeing my piece on stage and working with the amazing dancers,” Powell said. “Everyone is working through the pandemic to have this concert.”