Performing Arts

Matt Shingledecker '08 has been cast as Roger Davis in the Off-Broadway revival of "Rent," which opens Aug. 11 at New World Stages in New York City.

Lauren Kearns, associate professor of dance and head of the dance program at Elon, worked with Emmy-nominated director Douglas Rosenberg and noted dance theorist Ann Dills in selecting American Dance Festival's 16th Annual International Screendance Festival. The three worked together in April viewing over 90 screendance entries submitted from all over the world. You can see the twenty-three screendances they chose this week at Duke University. For dates, times and Duke Campus locations, please visit http://www.americandancefestival.org/projects/screendance.html

Lauren Kearns, Associate Professor of Dance and Head of the Dance Program, was recently selected as the Regional-Director for the American College Dance Festival Association's Mid-Atlantic Region. Kearns attended the national board meeting in Walnut Creek, CA where she completed her first term as a board member. She'll begin her Regional-Director duties October 1, 2011.

An unlikely pairing of disciplines celebrated a semester-long experiment last week that involved students from Performing Arts and Human Service Studies who assumed convincing roles as clients and their counselors.

Thirty-five years ago, before his Broadway career and faculty position at Elon University, Richard Gang was denied the lead role of Don Quixote when a small community theatre in Maine performed "The Man of La Mancha." Now he’ll have his chance. Gang stars this month in the same show at the Open Space Café Theatre in Greensboro, N.C., where eight students in the Department of Performing Arts will join him onstage.

Enjoy one of the final cultural events of the spring semester this weekend when the Department of Performing Arts presents On That Note... An Evening of Dance and Music, which opens Thursday night in McCrary Theatre.

The American premiere of "Pornogrpahy," directed by Kevin Otos, continues this week at the Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, N.C. Written in 2005 by British playwright Simon Stephens, "Pornography" deals with the emotional current of Londoners celebrating their city's successful Olympic bid before being brutally thrust into despair after the terrorist attacks on the London transportation system on July 7, 2005.

What can dance instructors do differently to help novice students avoid injury? And how do advanced students help in that regard? For Elon University senior Bridget Kelly, answering those questions has earned her acclaim at a major international conference, and her work is the latest to be featured in a series of E-net profiles on undergraduate research to be presented during CELEBRATE! 2011.

CELEBRATE! Week 2011 got underway Tuesday with a series of events that included a dance concert on the patio of the Center for the Arts. Watch some of the performance and view a gallery of images captured by Brian Meyer and Kim Walker in the Office of University Relations.