The body is the instrument

Body of Work

Tomorrow, 8 p.m.

Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts…

Body of Work

Tomorrow, 8 p.m.

Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts Center

5841 Penn Ave.

$10, $8 for students

(724) 738-2773

Dancing is an act of expressing one’s emotions through physical movement. With the physical aspect comes a mental release and a spiritual connection from the body to its surroundings.

Jennifer Keller’s dance project, “Body of Work” is a four-year development that will be presented this Wednesday at the Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts Center, displaying Keller’s vision of dance.

“Body of Work” is a collaboration of pieces choreographed by Keller, Dance Alloy’s Dennis Birkes and Nina Martin, David Grenke and Svi Gotheiner. Joining Keller are guest performers Birkes, Gwen Hunter Richie of Dance Alloy and Michele de la Reza of Attack Theatre. Keller specifically performs one solo of her own customized choreography and two other pieces that are choreographic collaborations.

“Body of Work” opens with an interactive game of speed word play entitled “Strictly Open.” Martin also presents her fanatical piece “My Hands are Dirty,” which portrays a compulsive shopper enraged by her environmentally savvy husband. Another scene focuses on the vulnerability of mankind and throughout the show a mixture of rigid athleticism with skillful expression is omnipresent. To close the show, Keller and Birkes perform an intriguing and diverse piece entitled “On Common Ground,” which is a combination of martial arts and fluid dance movements.

Keller was nervous about the financial commitment that came with putting on a production of this quality, but she was fortunate to receive Pittsburgh Magazine’s “Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award” and the Charles A. Zuzak Teaching Scholar/Artist Award from Slippery Rock University, where Keller has been a devoted teacher since 1999. Keller’s work has also been commissioned by Dance Alloy, Dance Theater Collective of Cleveland, LabCo Dance Company of Pittsburgh and Texas Woman’s University, among other companies.

Keller puts together four years of ideas, movements and development to create this presentation. She stated, “I wanted to do a concert last winter and I realized I had enough of a repertoire, a ‘body of work.'”