The Thesis Concert for MFA candidates Victoria DeRenzo, Jared Doster and Jonathan Kinsey takes place from Oct. 11-13. To fulfill the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts in Dance, graduate students are required to choreograph and organize a full-length production for their final semester.

The concert will go on for three nights. The first night, audiences will see “Within a Dream” and “23 and Counting,” the second night of shows will include “Within a Dream” and “THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” and the final show will include “23 and Counting” and “THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

DeRenzo’s piece, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” is a forty-minute mixed medium production that involves live dance, choreographed by DeRenzo, as well as film and set design.
“I would like for the audience to be fulfilled by [the] physicality of my work, but changed by the sentiment of it,” DeRenzo said. “I want them to walk away feeling, thinking and analyzing both the work itself and how it may or may not connect to the sensation of their time.”

Jared Doster’s piece is a thirty-minute dance concert about a young woman immersed in a sequence of dreams that the audience witnesses. Jonathan Kinsey’s film “23 and Counting” blends choreography with documentary style filmmaking.

“Capturing movement of the body through the lens of a camera allows me to find a story worth telling,” Kinsey said. “In ‘23 and Counting,’ my thesis film, I explore the thoughts and challenges of today’s college-aged young adults. Their stories unfold at the intersection of their dialectic perspective and embodied inner thoughts.”

The production involves over 40 undergraduate and graduate dance majors. Rehearsals for this performance have been going on 12 hours each week for two semesters.

Tickets are free. For more information, contact the Performing Arts Center Box Office at 936-294-2339.