An audience packed with students, parents and dancers said they didn't know what to expect behind the red velvet the curtain at the Dance Studio Theatre on Wednesday night.
Paula Hassman, an art freshman who attended the graduate concert at Physical Education East building, said this is the usual routine for Herberger College of the Arts dance concerts.
Hassman has attended Herberger dance concerts in the past. She said the visuals and choreography are intense, and not what audiences expect.
Lisa Thorngren, an ASU dance graduate student and the artistic director for the graduate concert, said the seven performances at the production were choreographed by graduate students and preformed by both graduate and undergraduate students.
Dancers in each piece had to audition before graduate choreographers to perform in the show.
The dance department usually puts on two graduate shows a year, Thorngren said. However, the concert at 7:30 Wednesday night was the first and last graduate concert of the year.
She said the show is sure to bring some surprises, although it depends on each audience member and his or her experiences with dance.
Michael Stromberg, a business freshman, said he came to watch the concert after a group of his friends from his residence hall brought him to the show.
"[Dance] is something I'm not used to. I liked it, but most people won't understand it," he said of the performance.
But, "it's not just dancing, it's acting," and people should still go check out the concert and try something new, he said.
"I've never watched performances like this before," she said. "There's concepts to the movements."
Hassman said she's used to theatrical performances on stage, and she enjoys coming to the Herberger dance concerts because they are a different spectrum of performance.
"Anyone can relate to it," she said, adding that the meanings behind the dances are open-minded and bring up social and political content, such as issues related to global warming.
Dancing, videos and music are all used to achieve a message to the audience.
Thorngren said the goal of the concert is to have individual pieces that together create a cohesive show.
She said each show brings different performances and different content to the table, along with some surprises.
"Audiences don't want a show that's all solo performances; it is more interesting for the audiences to see a variety of pieces," she said. The goal is creativity – a show that has variety, Thorngren said.
Reach the reporter at: lauren.misak@asu.edu.
