A moment from a previous Peridance faculty showcase

Spirits were high and contemporary was king at Peridance’s Winter 2014 Faculty Showcase on Sunday. Despite an ambitious program—12 pieces—and a sizeable crowd, the show ran smoothly and quickly, clocking in at two hours. With this showcase, Peridance has created a chance to drum up interest in its diverse faculty, as students often get to participate in these works—sometimes alongside the faculty choreographers.

My favorites from the evening include Grant Chang’s sassy, tongue-in-cheek Miss AMERICAN’T, Marlena Wolfe’s Irish step dancing-influenced Kyte and Breton Tyner-Bryan’s well-dressed (and heeled) SELF. Though I find that contemporary dance is often prone to overly dramatic gestures and yearning faces, the dancers were enjoying themselves far too much last night to be anything but entertaining—I found myself with renewed interest in getting to dance class, myself.