[246]MTSU DANCE THEATRE SPONSORS BENEFIT CONCERT JAN. 16

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 6, 2009
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, lrollins@mtsu.edu, 615-898-2919.

MTSU DANCE THEATRE SPONSORS BENEFIT CONCERT JAN. 16
‘Holding Patterns’ Concert Proceeds Go to MTSU Dance Scholarship Fund

(MURFREESBORO)—MTSU Dance Theatre will present Holding Patterns, a concert to benefit the MTSU Dance Scholarship Fund, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16, in the Boutwell Dramatic Arts Building’s Tucker Theater.
Kim Neal Nofsinger, artistic director of the dance program, said the upcoming concert will feature his award-winning choreography performed by members of MTSU Dance Theatre and guest performers from Kennesaw State University and Illinois State University.
“Within the last four years the dance program at MTSU has gained regional and national recognition for its high-quality scholarship, community service and productions,” Nofinger said. “These achievements include selection for the Gala Concert at the American College Dance Festival Regional Conference in 2007 and in 2008.”
The benefit concert, in turn, will help further the program’s mission, added Nofsinger, who said proceeds from Holding Patterns will directly assist efforts to retain and recruit new students from throughout the southeast. Describing the benefit concert, which is based on Nofsinger’s “attempts to understand the intricacies of relationships,” Holding Patterns will feature eight dances linked by the writing of Adrienne Rich, including the award-winning solo, “The Fact of a Doorframe, and the nationally commissioned works “Adumbration,” “Holding Patterns” and “Letting Go.”
“Holding Patterns is based on my attempts to understand the intricacies of relationships,” the choreographer remarked. “I am fascinated with how individuals are seldom truly present in the relationship they are having. They tend to have false expectations of an idealized interaction, as they look ahead, or misperceptions of the current situation drawn from previous interactions. Seldom do they allow the current moment in any relationship to exist unfiltered and uncluttered.” Nofsinger said the complexity of this interweaving of hopes, desires, hurts and losses was brought to the forefront of his mind over the course of the last year. In May 2007, his sister Amy was diagnosed with terminal cancer; a month later she died. Although he still grieves his sister’s death on a regular basis, “her death brought a new awareness to my own life,” he has said.
“Within the space of those five weeks, the dynamics of a myriad of relationships were laid open,” Nofsinger shared, referring to his sister’s last weeks. “Exposed were the connections, both completed and missed, between parents and children, siblings, friends, lovers and community. The stark transparency this situation offered was a strange blessing in a time of great loss.”
• TICKETS: Tickets for Holding Patterns are $10 each and will be available at the door. For more information, please contact Nofsinger via e-mail at nofsinge@mtsu.edu or by calling (615) 494 -7904.

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• ATTENTION, MEDIA: To secure a performance jpeg of dancer Matthew Frazier performing a work from Holding Patterns, please e-mail lrollins@mtsu.edu. Photo credit: Martin O'Connor.