From April 19 to 21, Point Park University dance students will take the stage at the Byham Theater as part of the dance department’s annual spring performance. The concert will feature several diverse works, including “Heretic” by Martha Graham, “Sky” by Kevin Iega Jeff, “Bow Out” by Val Caniparoli and “Minus 16” by Ohad Naharin.According to Susan Stowe, chair of the dance department, the choreographers for this year’s show were chosen with the students in mind. “I solicit input from the faculty, and then we look at the needs of the students, such as what genre or style is needed to reflect the talent that we have at Point Park,” Stowe said Thursday in her office.  “It’s four really wonderful ballets in this program. We’ve done Martha Graham before, but the others are new to Point Park.  Each one is unique.” There are two separate casts that perform Graham’s “Heretic.”  Sophomore dance major Megan Meyer dances in the corps of the piece. She is a part of the cast that received the opportunity to perform the piece in New York City. The piece involves an outcast, originally danced by Graham herself, who tries to make her unique voice heard over a strict, oppressive society.  It is danced by a soloist in white, surrounded by a corps of women dressed in black. “It’s unique because it’s one of her original works that was set here, which is a great opportunity for us,” Meyer said Thursday in the Lawrence Hall lobby.  “It has minimal movement, and it’s a lot about intent.  Everything down to how we hold our fists is choreographed.  It’s a very unique experience for us, especially working as a corps.  It’s really clear when it’s clean, and it has to be done that way.”Jenna Saccurato, part of the additional cast of “Heretic,” will have her debut performance on the Byham stage.  She will be dancing the outcast role that Graham originally performed.  “It is a dark dance overall,” Saccurato said of the piece.  “So much of my emotions have to come out when I do it.  You have to make a dance interesting.  You’re not really moving that much, but it still has to be entertaining.”For Saccurato, learning and performing this role has helped her grow as a dancer and learn about herself.“It really helped me fully connect with my emotions when I’m performing,” she said.  “There are no moves to cover up anything.  I was always afraid to go to that place of, ‘I’m playing a role.’  I’ve never done anything like that before, to this extent.”Both casts of “Heretic” were also thrilled to have their dance notated by a representative from the Dance Notation Bureau, which notates choreographed pieces for accuracy in future performances. “We are keeping something alive that was created so many years ago,” Meyer said.Another piece in the show is “Sky” by Jeff. This uplifting, fast-paced contemporary dance was first performed by River North Dance Chicago in 2006. The piece is divided into two sections that each reflect Jeff’s attitudes at the time he was choreographing the dance. “The first section is like a storm,” Belle Jessen, a freshman dance major performing in “Sky,” said Friday in the Lawrence Hall lobby. “We’re looking to the sky because he choreographed the first section in this apartment that only had a really, really tiny window.  It was more about frustration.  In the second section he moved to a different apartment with these beautiful windows.”In order to execute the intricate choreography, the dancers had to learn not only how to pace themselves, but how to properly release any physical tension. “A lot of times when we were learning it, the word that was continually used was ‘surrender,’” senior dance major Benjamin Belhumeur said Friday in the Lawrence Hall lobby.  “It’s a very unique piece.  You have to really trust your body to just release and place itself.”  Additionally, the concert features a contemporary ballet piece, “Bow Out,” by versatile ballet choreographer Caniparoli. The piece was first performed by the Richmond Ballet in 1995. According to Nick Fearon, a freshman dance major, the piece does not have a specific story, but rather is “very sophisticated” and “stylized.”  This piece also has separate, distinct sections, and according to Fearon, it takes a lot of stamina to “power through.” One section involves the dancers performing “different tricks” using jackets.  They transfer the costume piece back and forth using complex movements. The last piece in the lineup is “Minus 16” by choreographer Naharin. This 35-minute modern dance piece was originally set on Netherlands Dance Theater in 1999. The piece was set by Cheryl Mann, a Point Park graduate and former principal dancer, with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and fellow Hubbard Street alum Tobin Del Cuore. For freshman dance majors Carlos Jimenez and Katherine Wise, the piece was a chance to learn and perform a new style. “The choreography is very athletic, heavy, free-flowing movement,” Jimenez said Thursday in the Lawrence Hall lobby.The piece starts off with a “chair” section where a semi-circle of dancers go through repetitive movement set to a Passover song.  In another section of the piece, the dancers invite members of the audience to come up and dance with them.  The dancers also perform what has been called “geriatric improvisation.”“You’re supposed to be very rigid, and your muscles are tense,” said Wise. “It’s very small, it doesn’t have specific counts.”