Rider Dances Presents 'Rider Dances with Laney Engelhard' March 9 and 10

Editor's Note: The following is a news release issued by Rider University.

Rider University will present Rider Dances with Laney Engelhard on Saturday, March 9,  at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 2 p.m. in the Bart Luedeke Center Theater on the campus of Rider University in Lawrence Township.

The performance will feature Rider University students performing works by choreographer Laney Engelhard.  “Laney Engelhard has mounted exceptional work on Rider Students for the past seven years. We are indebted to her industrious nature and creative vision and welcome the chance to highlight her work,” says Dance Program Director Kim Chandler Vaccaro.

“The underlying theme to this year's performance is the mind/body dualism that continues to pervade our culture. The overwhelming predominance of body/mind separation still exists in the academy and denigrates most active learning tactics and active learners as if they were somehow less intelligent than those in math or science. This concert considers Bloom’s Taxonomy, which puts creativity at the top of critical thinking skills; how the brain works and what various parts of the brain do; and the communicative and therapeutic powers of dance -and what all that means to the nature of intelligence.”

Through original films, music and movement Rider Dances will explore the importance of the body in understanding information through the senses and in communication, how a dancer often advances through the entire spectrum of thinking skills from memorization to meta-cognition to creativity in every rehearsal and dance as language that has metaphor, imagery, rhythm, phrasing, punctuation, semiotics and culturally encoded symbolization.

Laney Engelhard has danced with Oregon Ballet Theatre and worked with choreographer Trey McIntyre on Michael Curry’s production of ‘Spirits.’  She has been a guest artist with Hubbard Street Dance Company II, Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular, and with Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance in Asheville, N.C.  As a choreographer, she has created many works for schools in the New Jersey area.  She has created pieces for Princeton’s Body Hype ensemble, Rider dancers, ComeUnity, American Repertory Ballet, the Outlet Dance Project, and Collaborative Arts Motion New Dance Works.

In an effort to “go green,” Rider Dances with Laney Engelhard is attempting to be a paperless concert.  The program will be produced in electronic form.  It posted on the Rider Web site in a pdf format and projected on the stage.  Advance tickets may be ordered, but not printed.

Kim Chandler Vaccaro is assistant professor of Dance at Rider University. She became a professional dancer and teacher while earning a Bachelor of Arts in Choreography and Performance from the University of California at Santa Barbara, a Master of Dance Education from the University of California at Los Angeles and a doctorate of Education from Temple University.  In addition to lecturing nationwide on dance education, she often leads workshops for dance and public school teachers, both for American Repertory Ballet and around the state.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students and families participating in Admitted Students Day. Reserve tickets by calling the box office at 609-896-7775 or online at www.rider.edu/arts.  Rider University is located at 2083 Lawrence Rd. in Lawrence Township.