Baltimore, MD - The Phoenix Dance Company, a professional modern dance company in residence at UMBC, celebrates a new year with inspirational and provocative work by nationally recognized choreographers Carol Hess, Doug Hamby and Jeanine Durning.

This year's program features a premiere of a dance and video collaboration between Hess and visual arts professor Vin Grabill, as well as the premiere of a new work choreographed by Hamby.

Also performed will be Dissolve a solo piece choreographed by New York-based artist Jeanine Dunning. This highly reflective, yet very kinetic, emotional work was choreographed specifically for UMBC professor Sandra Lacey. It is based on movement of ideas of transformation: solid to liquid, physical to emotional, with shifts of emotional overlay. It explores the emergence of the self in the delicate balance between appearance and disappearance and how we choose to reveal ourselves to others.

Other works include Point of Departure choreographed by Hess, which integrates video images with live dance, and Calamus a dance, video and sound collaboration between Hamby, visual arts professor Steve Bradley (sound) and Imaging and Digital Art graduate student Deborah Gorski (video). After a performance at DC-based Dance Place this summer, an enthusiastic review of this piece by the Washington Post said that "...the concept worked brilliantly."

Admission to all performances is $10 general and $6 for students and seniors. For information and reservations, please call the Department of Dance Box Office at (410) 455-6240.

Public parking is available.

For more information or directions to UMBC, please call (410) 455-6240.