Dance Series

2025-2026 Dance Series

U.F.O. (Uncharted Forms of the Occasion)

Monday, October 20, 2025 • 5:30 p.m.
Wriston Art Gallery
Free admission

U.F.O. (Uncharted Forms of the Occasion) is an improvisational performance practice bringing together musicians and movers to spontaneously compose for an audience. Inspired by a lineage of improvisational performance formats such as Hyperlocal MKE and Lower Left’s Available Space in San Diego, U.F.O. is a site for artists to gather and create – relying on their individual and ensemble histories of improvisational research and practices to support this delightful and sometimes precarious community endeavor. This year’s iteration of U.F.O. will include LU faculty, students, and local artists.

Jeanine Durning + Trio

The Play

Choreography and direction by Jeanine Durning
For and with performers: Sarah Konner, Erin Kouwe, and Miguel Castillo

Friday, January 16, 2026 • 7 p.m.
Esch Studio, Warch Campus Center
Free admission

The Play, a new trio, grapples with desire, grief, urgency, and purpose in a volatile world. Set in a room where everyday objects are constantly organized, reorganized, and disordered, three performers frame and reframe recurring scenes that blur the lines between memory, present reality, and future possibility. Combining movement and speech within a framework of Durning’s performance practice nonstopping, the piece challenges the forces of uncontrollable change. It explores how to maintain agency in a world moving too quickly, how to persist in the midst of dismantling systems, and how to cultivate new forms of togetherness amidst uncertainty. Through looping scenarios, The Play amplifies the precision and precariousness of decision-making, navigating personal desire and the need for connection. The work plays with time, place, and communication, creating temporary meanings in unpredictable circumstances. It asks: how do we begin again, repeatedly, in the face of loss and chaos?

Jeanine Durning is a Guggenheim Fellow and Alpert Award winning choreographer and performer from New York whose work has been described by The New Yorker as having both “the potential for philosophical revelation and theatrical disaster.” Since 1998, she has created over 20 works, known for blurring artistic and aesthetic boundaries. Her practice nonstopping has been the foundation of her research since 2010.

Miguel Castillo (dancer), a Venezuelan performer named in Dance Magazine’s 2024 “25 to Watch,” explores cross-disciplinary collaborations and diasporic imagination. He performs in works by Faye Driscoll, Durning, among others. He holds an MFA in Dance from Smith College.

Sarah Konner (dancer) is a dance artist, choreographer, and improviser. She has performed with Durning, Sara Shelton Mann, Jenna Reigel, SetGO, and ChavasseDance&Performance. Konner is an Associate Professor at the Boston Conservatory.

Erin Kouwe (dancer) is a creator, dance artist, and educator. Her work has been presented by Nashville Ballet, Tennessee Women’s Theater Project, and several colleges and universities. She has performed with New Dialect, Visceral Dance Chicago, Luna Negra Dance Theater, and others. Erin is a certified Countertechnique teacher and holds an MFA from Smith College.

Panadanza

Pulse and Passage: Rhythms and Stories from West Africa to the Americas

Saturday, April 18, 2026 • 7 p.m.
Esch Studio, Warch Campus Center
Free admission

This concert celebrates the embodied histories of the African Diaspora through rhythm, dance, and storytelling. Tracing cultural lineages from West Africa to Brazil, Panamá, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and New York City, the performance explores themes of joy, resistance, and collective memory that continue to shape diasporic identity and creative expression across generations.

Founded in 2008 by Panamanian-born artist Karlies Kelley, Panadanza Dance Company is a Milwaukee-based collective rooted in the rhythms, stories, and movement traditions of the African Diaspora. With a focus on connection, healing, and cultural preservation, Panadanza offers performances, workshops, and community programs that span traditional, modern, and post-modern dance forms—from West Africa to the Americas.

Guided by a commitment to joyful resistance and inclusive expression, Panadanza creates safe spaces for women, youth, and intergenerational communities to move, sing, and play. The company’s work is informed by research, travel, and lived experience, including artistic exchanges in Ivory Coast, Brazil, and throughout the Caribbean and U.S. Through embodied practice, Panadanza celebrates diasporic identity and affirms that dance belongs to everyone—across borders, languages, and generations.