The Dance Alloy combined a bon voyage party with its season announcement last Friday at the company's studios in Friendship. Nearly all of the renovations for phase one of its capital campaign were in place: full-color giant photos and illuminated banners along Penn Avenue, an awning for the entrance and fresh paint inside, along with new furniture from IKEA.

Company members Stephanie Dumaine, Scott Lowe, Maribeth Maxa, Adrienne Misko and Michael Walsh performed Donald Byrd's "Interrupted Narrative/No Consolation," which the company premiered April 14, 2007. It is the piece that they will be performing Thursday at international tanzmesse nrw, a biennial dance festival in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Artistic director Beth Corning introduced Christopher Bandy, former Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre dancer, who will join the Alloy this year, replacing Lowe, and outlined the 2008-09 season:

"Dirty Little Secrets" will lead off at the New Hazlett Theater Dec. 5-8 with a world premiere by Marina Harris, "Three Camilles," based on Alexander Dumas' "La Dame aux camilias," and "Schakt," a piece by Swedish choreographer Per Jonsson that the company presented in its North American premiere in 2005.

"Exposed: Rituals, Gestures & Games of Scrabble" will be at the Hazlett April 3-6 with a pair of world premieres -- "Into Great Silence," a dance poem inspired by the devotions and rituals of Christian and African belief systems by Zimbabwean choreographer Nora Chipaumire, and Corning's "For Two Men," to be performed by Bandy and Walsh. Victoria Marks' "Dancing to Music" will complete the program.

The Alloy will continue its popular "Behind the Curtain" series at the Friendship studios with Per Sacklen (Oct. 3), Harris (Nov. 21), Chipaumire (Jan. 21), Corning (Feb. 20) and Marks (March 9).

-- By Jane Vranish,
Post-Gazette dance critic