Part of the Meadows Dance Ensemble performs “Ars Amatoria” at the Spring 2008 Dance Concert. Faculty member Andrew Parker set his “Ars Amatoria,” or “Art of Love,” to Tchaikovsky’s “Suite No. 3 for Orchestra.” (Stuart Palley)

The Meadows Spring Dance Concert opened Wednesday night in the Bob Hope Theatre at the Owens Art Center. The performance features a selection of contemporary and jazz works.

The performance opens with the premiere of “Ars Amatoria,” or “Art of Love,” by faculty member Andrew Parker set to Tchaikovsky’s “Suite No. 3 for Orchestra.” He says of his pieces, “As with any creation, the culmination is the result of shared energy and purpose.”

The program also includes Martha Graham’s most famous solo work, “Lamentation,” which honors the universal experience of grieving. “Lamentation,” which premiered in 1930, features a dancer wearing a long tube of material to “indicate the tragedy that obsesses the body, the ability to stretch inside your own skin, to witness and test the perimeters and boundaries of grief, which is honorable and universal,” says Graham.

Next on the program are four male and four female dancers performing Twyla Tharp’s critically acclaimed 1991 piece “Octet” set to composer Edgar Meyer’s “The Plumed Serpent.” The choreographer shows off the women somewhat more prominently than the men. Shawn Stevens is a former Twyla Tharp company member who premiered the work trained the SMU dancers. Meadows will perform the fifth performance of the piece since its premiere in 1991.

“Three Pieces,” a quirky, abstract duet by faculty member Nathan Montoya is also part of the concert. The piece was originally created for Voices of Change, which toured to England in 2003 with the Meadows Wind Ensemble. The music, Igor Stravinsky’s “Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet,” will be performed live by Jonathan Jones of the Wind Ensemble.

Rounding out the Spring Dance Concert is “Batucada,” a tribute to the late Maurice Béjart. Béjart was a French and Swiss choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He passed away last November after a long and distinguished career. Myra Woodruff, chair of the Division of Dance at SMU, and a former teacher at the Rudra Béjart ballet school and performer in Béjart’s professional company in Switzerland, prepared the tribute. The original score by Jamal Mohamed, Director of the Meadows World Music Ensemble, was based on the batucada, an African-influenced Brazilian percussion style. Twenty-five dancers embody the call to move and dance, a Béjart trademark.

The concert will run through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for students, faculty and staff.

(Stuart Palley)