LCC to host 'DANCE Lansing' display

By Chloe Gregg
Associate Editor

This weekend, the LCC Theatre Department is partnering with DANCE Lansing and Happendance to host a concert for the LCC and Lansing community.

On Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30 at 7 p.m., DANCE Lansing’s community dance project will take place in the Gannon Building commons area.

This event is completely free, although donations to support the Theatre and Dance Scholarship Funds are appreciated.

Paige Tufford-Dunckel, the Performing Arts coordinator at LCC, said this community dance project features choreographers and dancers coming together to create a unified concert and celebrate the dance community.

“Many LCC dance students and alum have choreographed for and danced in a DANCE Lansing concert over the last several years,” Tufford-Dunckel said. “This concert is a tradition in our community and is back after a two-year hiatus, due to COVID.

“The first summer of COVID, Happendance did produce a virtual concert that attracted many new dancers and choreographers, even outside of Michigan.”

Emily Scott, co-director at Happendance for the DANCE Lansing project, said DANCE Lansing originally was called “Community Dance Project” when it was founded by Matt Bebermeyer in 2005.

“It was a small dance project meant to create more performance opportunities for dancers in the Lansing area,” Scott said. “Matt and a small group of dancers grew the project in collaboration with Happendance and Lansing Community College over time, involving hundreds of dancers over the last two decades.

“As the years have progressed, Dance Lansing has kept its original idea of making dance accessible to the community by creating a space where dancers old and young, advanced and novice and currently practicing, and people that haven't danced in years, to all come together and create amazing works.”

Added Scott: “It's safe to say not only us directors, but all the dancers, have been working extra hard this summer to put on the best show possible.”

Scott said this show will include multiple dance styles, including modern, lyrical and jazz. The show will also cover topics from love to the current news of Roe v. Wade being overturned.

For more information on this event, visit LCC’s events calendar.