Point Park University senior dance major Alyson Laury is using her choreographic talents to benefit charity.  She will present her own dance production in May, and donate the proceeds to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. The new show, called “Perception,” will premiere May 4 at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Shore.The project was started when Laury received a grant from the Puffin Foundation, which, according to their website, seeks “to open the doors of artistic expression by providing grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their race, gender or social philosophy.”Laurydecided to use the grant to create her own dance production, since she has “always had a strong passion for choreography.”             But she needed to decide what direction to take the show.“I was trying to figure out how to use my grant and what to do with it,” Laury explained Feb. 27 in the Lawrence Hall Lobby. Her friend Jessica Heinrichs, a senior advertising and public relations major, suggested that they use the show proceeds to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which grants wishes to ill children. Heinrichs, who volunteers for Make-a-Wish, is coordinating the event planning and marketing aspects of the show.“Perception” will feature dream-inspired contemporary dance pieces, performed by a cast of Point Park dance majors.“I pretty much just picked people that I know and that I worked well with,” Laury said.  “They are all doing it for free, too, so a lot of it was whether or not they wanted to invest their time into it.” The group rehearses about two or three times a week for the May performance.In an email interview on Feb. 29, senior dance major Natalie Hratko described Laury’s past choreography as “very structured and athletic, giving her dancers both a challenge while showing off their skill.”She is sure that “the performance will bring a dynamic collection of work that will have both high energy and attention to detail.” Hratko is stage managing the show, along with technical theater graduate James Ogden. “As stage manager, I will be sitting in on rehearsals as often as I can to visually learn the piece,” Hratko explained. “Come tech time we will be able to create light cues from our mutual knowledge of the work. This then culminates to actually calling the show while making sure things run smoothly.”Additionally, senior cinema majors Patrick Linberg and Matt Leib are creating video footage for the show. “I have known Alyson since our freshman year, and when she approached me with the idea I was very excited and ready to work on it with her,” Linberg said in an email interview Friday. “I think it is a very great opportunity for all of us involved and also for a really good cause.”  Leib explained the process for creating the videos. “We’ve been meeting for rehearsals and filming them to compile into videos for Alyson’s IndieGoGo page, and for ‘Perception’ in general,” he said in an email interview Friday.  “Later in the month, we will be filming interviews with not only the cast of the show, but members and children of the Make-a-Wish foundation, to be shown prior to and during the dance show.”To fundraise for the project, Laury and Heinrichs have set up a Facebook page and an IndieGoGo account online. “All of the proceeds are going to Make-a-Wish, absolutely everything,” Heinrichs said Feb. 27 in the Lawrence Hall Lobby. “It takes three grand to make a wish happen; if we sell the theater out that will get us to exactly three grand.  So that’s kind of our goal.” Students who wish to donate can do so at www.indiegogo.com/Perception-5. Tickets for the May 4 show will be sold online as well.