On April 27to 29, the Point Park University dance department will close out its diverse season with its final concert, “Point Park Connections.”  The show will feature dances choreographed by members of the dance community who have connections to the university’s dance program. Many of the choreographers graduated from Point Park with dance degrees, and some are currently teaching in the program, including choreographer Fara Sciulli-Bowen. An adjunct ballet teacher in the dance department, Sciulli-Bowen studied ballet in Point Park pre-professional program before performing professionally.Her athletic, contemporary ballet piece, titled “DVS1,” was named after Houston DJ Ryan Boland, who goes by the moniker “DVS1.”  While looking for music, Sciulli-Bowen contacted Boland on Facebook.  He provided her with an upbeat, hip-hop tune. “As soon as I heard it, I saw all of this movement,” Sciulli-Bowen said in an interview last Wednesday in Lawrence Hall outside studio 201.The piece features athletic, physically demanding ballet movement set to the hip-hop beat.“I feel that it’s definitely ballet, but it’s very challenging,” said Sciulli-Bowen.  “The movement showcases [the dancers’] bodies a lot and their physical ability.”Freshman dance major Sophie Haines, who understudies the piece, thinks that the music adds to the movement because “it really opposes the fact that [the dancers] are wearing pointe shoes.”Overall, Sciulli-Bowen hopes her piece makes the audience feel happy.“I want them to leave with a fun feeling, a feeling that makes them want to dance,” Sciulli-Bowen said.Another adjunct professor of dance, Danielle Pavlik, will present her original contemporary piece “These Women” in the show.  Set to music by Vivaldi, Pavlik’s dance was choreographed to showcase the cast of strong female dancers.“It’s kind of like a moving painting,” Pavlik said in an interview last Thursday in Lawrence Hall lobby.Freshman dance major Ashley Zimmerman is one of the women in Danielle’s piece.“It’s definitely jazz, but it’s very Graham-based jazz movement,” Zimmerman said.  “There’s a lot going on with articulate movement, with the torso and isolating the torso.  There’s a lot of sliding on the floor.”Freshman dance major Akilah Brooks enjoys how the movement is continuous. “She really challenges you to articulate each and every part of your body,” Brooks said last Friday in the GRW dance complex.To develop the choreography, Pavlik spent time in of rehearsals working with the dancers and paying attention to how they moved.“I spent the first week teaching them phrases, to really get to see how they move, to spend some time to teach them some principles and to get them moving together as a company,” Pavlik said.  “Then, I tailored what I was doing based on their individuality.  While there is an underlying theme through the movement, you can really see their voices.”Pavlik hopes that the audience will be “visually impacted” by the movement in her piece.Adjunct jazz teacher and Point Park graduate Pearlann Porter is presenting an improvised piece.  This means while Porter loosely directs the dancers, they will make up their dance movements on the spot, instead of performing set choreography. The postmodern-jazz style is the same style that Pearlann performs with her Pittsburgh-based dance company, The Pillow Project.  “The concept of postmodern jazz is bringing the natural, organic physicality and instinct back” to movement, she said.  “We believe that we can make you see the music in a different way if we physicalize it.  So, I teach a lot of these principles in my classes here.”Called “Backlit in a whole new D,” Porter’s piece is “very heavily influenced” by “spontaneous lighting,” she explained.  “The lighting is set but the movement in its own is very spontaneous.  It’s loosely directed by myself, but jazzed live by the dancers.  They get to play with the musicality, the physicality, the tone, the reactions and actions of each other, and it’s backlit so the audience is actually going to see their outlines for a lot of the times.” The stage will be lit with a blue light from one side, and red from the other.  The audience will be given 3D glasses to wear, so they can experience the piece in “a whole new ‘D.’” For Pearlann, the piece is her final bow at Point Park University, which she is leaving after 16 years of teaching.  “I started as a choreographer here, as a student choreographer, and the music for this piece is sort of music that was the soundtrack to my college career,” she explained.  “It’s what played in my dorm room every day, what I always improvised to myself up in the old dance studios.  And it’s kind of cool that that’s how I’ll leave, finally having created this piece, 16 years in the making.”Choreographer Carolyn Paddock is returning to Point Park after graduating with a B.A. in Dance.  She has performed with Point Park’s American Dance Ensemble and Buffalo Ballet Theater.  Today, she runs her own production company, Paddock Productions, and provides choreography to numerous companies.