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Sept. 19, 2014 — Antaeus Dance, a Cleveland-based company founded by Allegheny College alumna Joan Meggitt, will present its annual fall concert in the Montgomery Performance Space at Allegheny College on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 8 p.m.

The company will also offer a free master class at 3 p.m. on Sept. 27. Both the concert and the master class are free and open to the public. Reservations and information can be obtained by calling the college’s Dance and Movement Studies program at 814-332-2813.

Antaeus Dance will perform two danceworks that explore life and death through dynamic movement and evocative imagery. Director Joan Meggitt will present “Events Leading Up to My Death.” Four dancers – Jessica Hodges, Heather Koniz, Shannon Sefcik and Rhian Virostko – move through a series of vignettes, beginning with the last and moving inexorably back in time toward the first.

Heather Koniz’s “Let My Hero In” depicts both the inner struggle and the outward consequences of addiction. Hodges, Sefcik and Virostko perform in this powerful piece, which highlights the prevalence of addiction in today’s society and provides social commentary.

Antaeus Dance commissioned new music for both pieces from Cleveland composer Greg D’Alessio. A frequent collaborator with Antaeus Dance, D’Alessio crafts rich compositions that match the intensity of the company’s performances.

The company balances these dances with two premieres created for students who participated in the 2014 Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive and two audience favorites from the repertory.

Antaeus Dance will showcase the talents of the Allegheny students with “Now fades the glimmering landscape…,” a poignant elegy by Desmond L. Davis for seven dancers. The students will also perform a new dance by Meggitt.

Davis and Meggitt will take to the stage with Koniz for Meggitt’s “Hidden Dialogue,” an athletic conversation using intense gestures and shared body language. The trio has been a staple of Antaeus Dance’s repertory since it premiered in 2003. The music of Tranquility Bass will reinterpret the compositions of Steve Reich through pulsating sounds and rhythms.

The 2009 quartet “Drift In, Drop Out,” which also explores a gestural vocabulary, will feature the visceral poetry of Allen Ginsberg paired with music by Philip Glass. Hodges, Koniz, Meggitt and Virostko perform.

Antaeus Dance has been performing at Allegheny College annually since 2001.