Empty nest inspires dance work by Klenjoski

Regina Klenjoski and her husband are facing one of those parental milestones — two of their three children are in the process of moving out of the house.

“Almost an empty nester,” the founder of the Regina Klenjoski Dance Company said. “It’s difficult, and it is continually a process to work through. It is a natural part of life, like most of our transitions are, and I really wanted to honor that transition, explore it.

“Maybe there’s a little therapy in there too,” she added with a laugh.

The transition inspired “Nest,” one of six works the modern dance company is presenting in “Beneath the Surface: Dances from Within,” in two performances next weekend at the Mary Jane Teall Theatre in Century II.

Klenjoski said the piece wasn’t a literal transition of her children leaving home.

“It’s very much about capturing the essence and distilling it down to putting the emotions into the physicality,” she said. “Life is so beautiful and so interesting and so rich that there are ideas in almost every experience you have.”

The three components of “Nest” include closeness and intimacy, solitude, and finding new connections.

“I like making work that’s a little more surreal, that evokes a feeling, an idea, that tickles the intellect and the soul in a way,” Klenjoski said. “It has to be an idea I can produce and the dancers can grab onto that’s a tangible experience in the creation of an interesting idea and structure.”

As with the other works she creates, Klenjoski said she coordinates with the dancers to get their feedback.

“Everybody had some sort of liminal space that they were experiencing or are experiencing where there are transitions going on in their world,” she said of her six dancers. “On a broader level, it’s about our relationship between vulnerability and resilience.”

The six themes in “Beneath the Surface” are all about the emotions many of us face, Klenjoski added.

“One of the things that ties them pretty dramatically is that they’re all speaking to the human condition,” she said. “They’re about our personal expressions as humans in relationship to each other. They’re all about life, really. They’re movement and expression on something that’s universal to all of us, that we experience on a daily basis.”

Among the other dances are:

• “Rank of Angels,” which debuted during the “Converge” performance last year examining the nine orders of angels in theology;
• “Mix ‘n’ Mingle,” by guest choreographer Kia Smith, called one of the “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance magazine;
• “Silhouettes,” a duet performed by dancers Rhiannon Vieyra and Aviance Battles, that delves into the enduring bonds of friendship;
• “In the Moment,” a celebration of the sheer joy of movement, featuring the company’s two newest dancers, Sara Goldfarb from North Carolina and Yuying Chen, a recent master’s degree graduate from Philadelphia’s Temple University; and
• A new solo work created by Klenjoski and danced by Eugene Chen.

Founded in 1999 in Torrence, Calif., the company will begin a formal education program in January, in collaboration with Wichita State University. It has already had successful movement classes at Gordon Parks Academy and Ascension Living Hope in Wichita.

It also is editing its “Golden Apple,” based on a Macedonian fairy tale, down for school assembly length to tour across the region.

‘BENEATH THE SURFACE: DANCES FROM WITHIN’

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Nov. 1-2

Where: Century II Mary Jane Teall Theatre, 225 W. Douglas

Tickets: $32 and $27, from selectaseat.com or the Century II box office