Oberlin Dance Faculty Partner with Neos Dance Theatre for Free Concert on Tappan Square

Oberlin’s Dance Department has partnered with Neos Dance Theatre, a professional ballet company based in Mansfield, Ohio, to give a free, public performance on Tappan Square. The concert coincides with Oberlin’s new weeklong summer dance intensive for high school students, July 6-11.

Neos artists will perform at 8:45 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at the bandstand on Tappan Square. The show will feature selections of diverse repertoire, including work by Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, and Bobby Wesner, a visiting dance instructor.

The Oberlin Dance Intensive (ODI) is a new initiative that Oberlin’s dance department created this summer for high school-aged dance students. “ODI is an amazing opportunity for younger dancers to study with renowned choreographers, dance teachers, and Oberlin College dance students,” says Ann Cooper Albright, professor of dance and chair of the department. “This intensive week will provide dancers with challenging technique classes and will expose them to new forms of dance and new ways of thinking about dance studies.”

Sessions and workshops will be led by Oberlin’s student-led hip-hop group And What?; contemporary dance and composition by Handman-Lopez; ballet by Bobby Wesner; wellness for dancers by Oberlin dance instructor Deborah Vogel; West African dance by Oberlin Artist in Residence Adenike Sharpley; and improvisation by Elesa Rosasco, associate professor of dance.

With performances by Neos Dance Theater and the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival, the program will also give high school students an opportunity to experience a variety of Oberlin’s performing arts. Students participating in the program come from all over the country, but most are from the Ohio region.

The free performance is sponsored by the Nord Foundation. Neos (Greek for “something new”) was founded in 2012.