Putnam Studio Theater came alive with flashes of color and movement during the Senior Dance Concert Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The concert presented solo pieces and group pieces all choreographed and performed by seniors.

Choreographing a piece for the concert is a requirement for senior dance majors, but students from all skill levels danced in the choreographed pieces.

One such piece was Soshanna Goldman's "Heliotrope Ascending." This group piece featured seven female dancers clothed in a costume of purple and mauve fabric. The lighting enhanced the performance further by subtly highlighting the shades of the costumes.

The dancers' movements were as bold as their costumes. They moved in groups, each rhythmically following one section of the three-part harmony that accompanied the dance. Then, all at once, the music would harmonize and all seven dancers would move as one. The energy of the dance was fantastic and spread to the audience, finally erupting in thunderous applause at the closure of the performance.

Another high energy piece, "Q Q QQ," a solo by Rebecca Robinson, followed intermission and quickly brought the second half of the concert up to speed.

"Q Q QQ" featured live accompaniment, consisting of tapping typewriter keys and natural percussion, while Robinson moved about the stage with movement as detached as the tapping of the keys.

Robinson also used magazines as a key element of her piece. She began by laying almost motionless on the floor reading, when suddenly the piece came to life as she moved and jumped around the stage, alternately breaking to take a leap or to rip some more magazines.

The correlation between Robinson's movement and her live accompaniment was amazing. She managed to perfectly match every tap or ring of the typewriter with some kind of movement or action. Though the movement was very fast and intense, she managed to stay in perfect rhythm.

Fast movement ruled "No sugar before bed," a six person group piece choreographed by Rachel Bowers. The dance showed exactly what the title implies Ñ children bouncing around on a sugar high. The dancers seemed snug in their bright thermal pajamas although they bounced, jumped and ran on and off the stage in a frenzy of activity.

Their energy was not limitless, though. When one of the dancers would run out of steam, another would appear from off-stage and drag his/her limp body off. The tired dancer would return, boisterous as ever, a moment later. All good things must eventually come to an end, though. In closing, all the dancers fell flat on their backs, still with smiles on their faces as the lights went black.

"You can dress me up," a nine-person group piece choreographed by Wendy Froebe, also entertained through amusing facial expressions. The piece focused on frozen movement instead of action, with the dancers appearing almost mannequin-like at times.

One especially stellar solo performance was Amanda Schneider's "Saf't." Schneider began the piece with one movement and slowly added different gestures, each one layering on top of one another in perfect time with the music.

She used very tight movements and hardly moved from her spot except to take hesitant steps backwards as she followed a string of Christmas lights positioned in a diagonal line across the stage. Schneider moved with grace and existed in a very closed, fluid space as she finished her path to back stage and rolled off.

Though the smorgasbord of styles and themes ranged from slow and serious to quick and humorous, the high energy, well-choreographed pieces electrified the show and provided momentum that propelled the entire concert to success.