Dance Program News
Spring Works 2024 Dance Concert
Purdue Contemporary 
Dance Company
Friday, April 26 - 7:30pm, Saturday, April 27 - 2:30pm & 7:30pm
$16.00 adults - $12.00 students – $8.00 Child 12 & under
Additional donations to PCDC are welcome! https://connect.purdue.edu/s/givenow
Purdue Campus Box Office – 765.494.3933
Please contact Sally Wallace at 765.494.5993 or rueffdance@groups.purdue.edu for more information
The Purdue Contemporary Dance Company, housed in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance in Yue-Kong Pao Hall, presents seven new works by dance faculty, three select student artists, and a PCDC Alumni Artist. The Dance Program and Department of Theatre faculty and students collaborate intensively to create original art on the stage, and to prepare students for careers in these performative disciplines. Original movement is created in the studio for each work over the course of the entire semester. All works are accompanied by original music/sound created specifically for these dances by students in the Department of Theatre’s Sound Design program in collaboration with choreographers. Rueff School light-design students work with choreographers to craft special light designs on the Nancy T. Hansen Theatre stage. Additionally, a Costume Design student works collaboratively with one choreographer to design and construct their costumes this semester. The works range from the deeply emotional to the dark and scary, from uplifting to deconstructed, and from ethereal to the grotesque. At under 90 minutes in length, this concert is a must-see in this community which hosts so little contemporary dance, especially dance created with this highly collaborative approach to art-making and performance.
The Rueff School’s Dance Program is thrilled to announce the recognition of excellence for the choreographic work of Lecturer Kathleen Hickey at the American College Dance Association East-Central Region Conference on March 2, 2024.
Hickey’s choreography, the burden of beauty, was one of ten works selected by adjudicators for the Conference Gala, a culminating performance celebrating the outstanding works from three dozen participating university Departments in the region.
The humorous, vulnerable, and physically demanding work features a cast that includes students majoring in Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, General Management, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and Computer Engineering.