4/1/2022 1:35:53 PM

In fall 2021, Drexel University’s Department of Performing Arts, housed within the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, announced the public launch of the Mandell Presents series as part of the 2021-2022 academic year. Mandell Presents expands on the mission of Drexel’s Department of Performing Arts to engage a broader University and community audience through an interdisciplinary series of theater, music, and dance productions. Featuring high caliber professional artists who engage with provocative ideas and innovative concepts through their work, the series delves deeply into contemporary issues impacting our community.

The second performance, Melting Ice/Changing Winds, continues the collaboration between choreographer Jody Sperling and composer Matthew Burtner, both acclaimed for their creative engagement with climate. Ice Cycle, a work inspired by Sperling’s experiencing dancing on polar sea ice, expresses the fragility and dynamism of the Arctic. Wind Rose visualizes local and global wind patterns that are changing dramatically along with the earth’s atmosphere. Northern Sky is a whirling meditation on planetary motion. (6 Dancers + Choreographer + option for live music with Composer)

“Ice Cycle is an unusually beautiful vision suggesting, at times, the effects of global warming, encompassing Sperling’s environmental concerns as well as her choreographic and design mastery.”—Dance Tabs

“engages the viewer’s senses of sight, hearing, and touch to draw you deeply into the moment. Indeed, the extent of its power can be hypnotic.” —World Policy Institute

“This type of dance is about power— channeling the spirit of the environment, and extending the agency of movement and the expressive power of the human body to it in kind.” —th_Eroses

To better realize President John Fry's goal of Drexel becoming "the most civically engaged University in the United States," Mandell Presents operates under a radical funding model that offers all programming entirely for free. Drexel is grateful to the Mandell Foundation for its support in moving the Department of Performing Arts and the wider Drexel community forward in its reach as innovative artist-citizens.

To register for this FREE event, visit the Mandell Theater’s ticketing website. For more information about the 2021-22 Mandell Presents season, visit the Department of Performing Arts website.

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Media Contact

Galen Blanzaco, Department Assistant and Mandell Presents Marketing Manager
Department of Performing Arts
(gob27@drexel.edu)