The performers in Headlong Dance Theater’s “Avalanche,” from left: Carol Dilley and Michael Reidy, of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College; Todd Coulter, Colby College; Rachel Boggia, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½; and Annie Kloppenberg, Colby. Photograph by Andrew Simonet/Headlong Dance Theater.

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Faculty from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and Colby colleges perform the Maine premiere of a piece by Philadelphia’s Headlong Dance Theater at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, May 28-29, at Space Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland.

Tickets cost $10, and are available at the door and at the . For more information, please call 207-828-5600.

Titled “Avalanche,” the performance piece explores the performer’s body over a lifetime of performing, and the idea of an ordinary life. “Avalanche” was developed by Headlong lead director David Brick, co-director Amy Smith and company dramaturg Mark Lord, in collaboration with the five performers — Todd Coulter and Annie Kloppenberg of Colby, and Rachel Boggia, Carol Dilley and Michael Reidy of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

The piece has been developed with support from a CBB Mellon Faculty Enhancement grant and from the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Faculty Development Fund. It will be performed in New York at Danspace June 6-8.

If you keep performing, “Avalanche” proposes, you find something new — something bigger and wilder, and more ordinary. You find your actual body.

“There’s something about being middle-aged now where I feel my body more, in all ways, including its lumpy, tender messiness,” says Brick. “Somehow it seems important to put that awareness together with the sensation of space itself — the ubiquitous substance that is not our bodies, but that presses against us wherever we are.”

Coulter and Kloppenberg are assistant professors of dance and theater at Colby. Boggia is assistant professor of dance at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Dilley is associate professor and director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dance program, and Reidy is senior lecturer in and managing director of theater and dance.

The CBB Mellon grant made possible an extended residency at the colleges from 2011 to 2013. The faculty were interested in , which engages artists with fundamentally different training and backgrounds in a process where differences are resources for thinking, but not endpoints of style.

Research is at the center of this hybrid performance that not only combines dance, theater and storytelling, but also represents scholarship and builds on the professional experiences of the cast.

As Dilley says, “This piece is a logical continuation of 35 years of performance research.”

The stories in “Avalanche” twist to become at once hilarious and heartbreaking. Ultimately, the piece celebrates and laments the body in ways haunting, visceral and exquisitely formal.

“Bury them in an avalanche of love,” says a dancer in “Avalanche” as she recalls her younger self — “the love you have and the love you want.

“Look across the wings at your friends, say a little prayer to lose 40 pounds instantly and enter.”

Twenty years later, she tells herself, “Your fingers love texture. Everything in your being loves deep pressure, like being squished by a hat or a partner. When taking a bath you will be tempted to bring the laptop into the bathroom to watch ’30 Rock’ on Netflix.

“Don’t.”

Headlong Dance Theater

Brick and Smith founded Headlong Dance Theater with Andrew Simonet in 1993. Over the years, Headlong has created more than 40 dances, which often actively involve the audience and are known for their witty views of contemporary culture.

Recent projects include “This Town is a Mystery,” a series of potlucks hosted by ordinary Philadelphians performing in their own homes; “Explanatorium,” an audience-participation meditation on the inexplicable, performed in an abandoned Christian Science church; and “CELL,” a performance journey for one audience member at a time guided by a cell phone.

Informed by a deep commitment to collaboration, humor and formal experimentation, Headlong has won many fans and much acclaim including a Bessie Award and a Pew Fellowship.

Hailed as “fiendishly inventive” (The New Yorker) and “bright and brash” (The New York Times), Headlong’s work has been presented at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York’s Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122 and Central Park Summerstage; the Jade Festival and the Kyoto Arts Center in Japan; the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and the Portland (Ore.) Institute for Contemporary Art.

Watch as the Margaret Hopkins Merrill Gymnasium undergoes a transformation from sports venue to theatrical stage for the inauguration of Clayton Spencer.

The inauguration stage was designed by Michael Reidy, senior lecturer in theater and managing director of theater and dance.

He explains that presenting the stage as a triangle of sorts — “kicking the stage on an angle,” he says — was done to give spectators an unobstructed view of the platform party, podium and musical performers.

Produced by the college’s Digital Media Studios, the video uses photographs taken over seven days with an automated Canon Rebel XS. The images were converted to high-definition (1080p) video using Apple Compressor’s image sequencer, then edited inside Final Cut 7. The tilt-shift effect — which focuses the viewer’s attention on the stage through a slight blur of the top and bottom of the video — was added using Apple Motion 6.

Peter Richards, director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ production of “Big Love.”

New York City-based director Peter Richards helms the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College production of Big Love, a modern adaptation of an ancient Greek drama, in performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 1-3, and Monday, Nov. 5; and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 3-4, in Gannett Theater, 305 College St.

Admission is $6 for the general public and $3 for students and seniors, available at or by calling the box office at 207-786-6161. For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

Playwright Charles Mee’s inspiration for Big Love was the ancient Greek drama The Suppliant Maidens, in which 50 daughters of an Egyptian king flee Egypt to illegally avoid marriage to their cousins.

Transposing this plot into modern times, Big Love raises issues of gender politics, love and domestic violence as Lydia and 49 of her sisters flee from Greece to an Italian manor to avoid a similar marriage arrangement with cousins.

“There is so much to engage with in this play,” says Richards. “There’s comedy, drama, singing, dancing, over-the-top theatricality. And there are moments of simple sincerity and silence.

“There’s something for everyone. And it’s all about love!”

“The more outlandish the show gets, the more immediate its impact,” wrote New York Times reviewer Alvin Klein. “For here is surprise, astonishment and adventure, restored to theater.”

Richards, a stage and television actor, knows the playwright through their work together on another Mee piece. In Big Love, he says, Mee is exploring “a way of being in the world with other people that is quite a bit different from how many of us live our lives.”

It’s a style of living that’s immediate, sensuous, uncomplicated, loving and fearless — “it seeks to explore the whole of life, including the ugly parts, and embraces life as a series of spontaneously appearing opportunities,” the director says. And that view of life as something unplanned is reflected in Mee’s narrative structure, Richards adds.

Big Love affords a fun challenge for the performers. “It’s an extremely physical play,” the director explains. “Actors fling themselves onto the floor, throw things, jump on each other, sing, dance and otherwise express themselves in ways unlike what people often expect to see in the theater.”

Richards and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ connected through Opera House Arts in the Maine town of Stonington, where he has directed five productions in recent years. Doing design work for the company was ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ managing director of theater and dance, Michael Reidy.

In New York City, Richards has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and American Repertory Theater, among other companies. His television credits include roles in Law and Order: SVU and As the World Turns. He’s a founding member of the Brooklyn-based experimental theater company Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students performing in Big Love include seniors Caroline Ulwick of University Park, Md., Travis Jones of Ithaca, N.Y., and Charley Stern of Riverwoods, Ill.; juniors Brittney Davis of Chicago and Chris Makrides of Cape Elizabeth; sophomores Hanna Allerton of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Nick Auer of Fairfield, Conn.; and first-years Allie Freed of Magnolia, Mass., and Sam Myers of Riverton, Wyo.

Nancy Salmon, assistant director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival, is also a member of the cast, playing opposite her husband, Maine state Rep. David C. Webster.

The production features choreography by Carol Dilley, associate professor of dance and director of the college dance program; and scenic and costume design by B. Christine McDowell, associate professor of theater.

Marketa Ort ’13 of New York City in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College production of Alan Ball’s play “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress.” Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College.

Performed at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College as part of an independent study in bringing characters to life on stage, Alan Ball’s Five Women Wearing the Same Dress will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 16 and 17, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 18, in Gannett Theater, 305 College St.

Admission is open to the public at no cost. The script contains conversations about sex and drug use that may be inappropriate for children. For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

Five Women reveals the conversations, confessions and laughs that ensue when five reluctant bridesmaids hide from a wedding reception in an upstairs bedroom. As the night progresses, the women learn that despite their many differences, they share a bond that runs much deeper than their identical dresses.

The six actors in this production are performing the piece as part of an independent study in theatrical characterization. Their instructor is Senior Lecturer in Theater Katalin Vecsey, who is also directing the play.

Ball, creator of the TV series True Blood and Six Feet Under and the Academy Award-winning film American Beauty, wrote Five Women in 1993.

Audiences who don’t know his work but enjoyed the 2011 film Bridesmaids will appreciate his humorous depiction of women’s relationships and the stress of a wedding. Both last year’s film, written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, and Ball’s play “are very funny, include great female characters and show the vital importance of female friendships in the context of a wedding,” says Vecsey.

“Each character gets her moment to break out and break down in Five Women. As they get drunker, they fall into raw confessions about abortion, drug use, loveless marriages, illicit sexual encounters and one sad story about child abuse.

“But there’s more comedy than drama in this play, with lots of laughs.”

The edgy and complex characters in Ball’s bridal party include:

• the bride’s sarcastic sister Meredith, played by senior Caitlyn DeFiore of Westborough, Mass.
• the bride’s “ugly sidekick” Georgeanne, played by senior Nora Brouder of Winchester, Mass.
• the promiscuous friend Trisha, played by senior Jen Flanagan, of Sherborn, Mass.
• the naïve cousin Frances, played by junior Marketa Ort of New York City
• and the groom’s lesbian sister Mindy, played by sophomore Singha Hon, also of New York City.
• The only male character on the stage, Tripp Davenport, is an usher who falls for Trisha. Davenport is played by sophomore Danny Birkhead of Tyngsboro, Mass.

The actors have spent the semester working to create three-dimensional characters from Ball’s text. After a thorough investigation of how each character is represented in the play, Vecsey asks each actor to put imagination to work in writing an essay that rounds out the character’s life and personality. The goal is to create recognizable and believable characters and avoid archetypes and caricatures that are limiting and clichéd.

Vecsey, an expert on the use of the voice and speech in public presentations, emphasizes the importance of voice and movement in conveying the character. “The main focus is developing the physicality and the voices for each character without turning them into caricatures,” she says.

“The students are not allowed to use their own voices at all.”

Two students are involved in the play to fulfill independent studies in other theatrical disciplines: stage manager Liza Danello, a sophomore from Washington, D.C., and set designer Travis Jones of Ithaca, N.Y. They are working under the supervision of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ lecturer and managing director Michael Reidy.

Performing two separate programs twice, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Modern Dance Company presents the results of an innovative collaboration with theatrical lighting designers at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 30-31; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 1; and 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 2.

Program A is offered on Friday and Sunday, and Program B on Saturday and Monday. Performances take place in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. Admission is $6 for the general public and $3 for non-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students, senior citizens, and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty and staff.

For more information, please call 207-786-6161.Thirty-two dancers and choreographers will take part in the two programs, and three of the dances will be accompanied by music performed or composed by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students.

Aptly titled Novel, the overall project comprises 12 pieces. The choreographers are students in the course “Dance Composition,” taught by Sarah McCormick, acting director of the dance program. They collaborated with students in the course “Lighting Design: The Aesthetics of Light,” as well as with the course’s instructor, Michael Reidy.

“Michael and I just put our students together and they sat on the floor talking away,” says McCormick. “The assignment for each choreographer entailed choosing a piece of literature — hence Novel for the concert title. And this engaged the lighting designers to consider a myriad of lighting images, colors, stage designs and so on.”

She added, “Choreography might be defined as creating or designing movement in space, but the full exploration of lighting, costuming and how the dancers interpret the movement is what makes dance an exciting and thrilling art form.”

To see all events open to the public at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ this month, visit the online .

Three ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College faculty members who share a passion for photography have mounted their images in an exhibit titled “After Image” in Chase Hall Gallery, 56 Campus Ave. Open to the public at no charge from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, the exhibition continues through May 15.

The faculty photographers are Associate Professor of Spanish Claudia Aburto Guzmán, Associate Professor of French Kirk Read and Michael Reidy, technical director and lecturer in theater.

Aburto Guzmán suggested the idea of an exhibit to Read as a way of talking about their shared interest in photography and working on a project together that would encourage them to display their work in a public space. Read knew that Reidy was a photographer and invited him to take part. Other faculty members have since indicated interest in the conversation. “The theme seems to be photography as more than a hobby, but at this point, less than a profession,” says Read. “I really enjoyed the process of sharing ideas, reactions and sensibilities.”

Aburto Guzmán displays a series of black and white still lifes. Working with  Polaroid prints, Reidy presents a series of individual photographs that are combined in various ways, he writes, to “discover new, unplanned images.”

Using a macro lens, Read creates a series of portraits of plastic figurines that, depending on their environments, Read writes, appear “melancholy, inquisitive, naïve, rebellious, triumphant and desperate.”

The display is sponsored by the departments of Romance Languages and Literatures and Theater.