EUGENE–The Performers Project, a newly formed Eugene contemporary dance company, will present two performances of its upcoming debut concert, "No Boundaries," on Friday and Saturday, April 27—28, at the University of Oregon.

The seven-member dance company’s premiere performance is set for 8 p.m. in the Dougherty Dance Theatre on the third floor of Gerlinger Annex, 1484 University St. The dance theater is wheelchair accessible by elevator on the east side of the building.

Tickets, costing $10 for the general public and $5 for students and senior citizens, will be available 30 minutes prior to performance.

"No Boundaries" will feature diverse choreography by Eugene dancemakers Jennifer Knight Dills and Janet Descutner, as well as a guest duet choreographed by Minh Tran of Portland. Creative director of The Performers Project is Dills, a June 2000 UO alumna with a master of fine arts degree in dance who is an adjunct dance instructor at the university and at Lane Community College.

Opening the program will be "Bisou-Bisou," a modern ballet trio by Dills performed to the 1937 romance, "Epitaphe de Jean Harlow" by French composer Charles Koechlin. Danced by UO alumnae Erin Landaker, Pollyanna Linda and Sierra Woods, this fleeting wisp is lyric and sweet, evoking playful, tender female reflections.

Tran’s "Exposé," which premiered in Portland as a trio, has been reworked into an aggressive and dynamic duet commissioned and danced by Timothy Cowart and Corrie Franz Cowart, both graduate teaching fellows. Set to an electronic score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Brian Eno, "Exposé" features highly athletic, edgy choreography which breaks down gender-identified movements.

Dills’ "Receiving the Gift," performed by The Performers Project ensemble, is a formal abstract piece set to a contemporary composition of the same name by Jesse Manno. It is costumed by Rebecca Rank, a UO undergraduate student.

In the second half of the program, Dills’ visually charged piece of dance theater, "Deep Mirror," provides provocative glimpses into Dills’ interior female. Danced by The Performers Project ensemble in five episodes–Glass, Wings, Perfume, Aisle and Twilight–"Deep Mirror" is set to selected opera vignettes from the songs of Reynaldo Hahn, written between 1888 and 1896. Set and lighting design are by Dills and Amy Impellizzeri.

"Rain Cello," a structured improvisation for The Performers Project created by Sierra Woods, a company member and graduate student in interior architecture, surrounds the dancers and audience with spectral elements. Woods collaborates with Alex Kelly, a graduate student in cello performance and composition, to illuminate a harmonious cosmic world as her movement framework weaves together with his expressive aural atmosphere.

Dills performs a saucy, sultry eight-minute solo in "Touches," choreographed by Descutner, a UO associate professor emerita of dance. Set to the 1983 Leonard Bernstein piano score of the same name as recorded by James Tocco, "Touches" elaborates in movement on the myriad possibilities of its title, changing character facilely and frequently. Slippery one moment, then savoring the next like "hints of garlic," this dance reveals the rich creative relationship shared by Dills and Descutner.

Capping off the program with humor is "Only 1/2 the Story…." A questionable tale of a capricious "kat" invariably in the wrong place at the wrong time, "Only 1/2 the Story…" features The Performance Project ensemble and special guest dancers from the Lane Dance Company. Danced to the bawdy "Blues for a Killed Kat" composed by Jack End and commissioned for the 2001 "Collaborations" concert at Lane Community College, "Only 1/2 the Story…" will be accompanied by the LCC Symphonic Band for The Performance Project’s LCC performances in May and June.

For further information, call the UO Department of Dance, (541) 346-3386, or The Performers Project, (541) 302-3025.

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