PORT TOWNSEND — “Whisper,” the 18th annual performance created at Ling Hui’s Dance, will float onto the stage at Fort Worden State Park’s Wheeler Theater for just three performances this weekend.
The event, featuring 12 dances ranging from ballet to contemporary, brings together some 50 dancers, with original choreography and a wide variety of music, at 7 p.m. Saturday and both 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets, $15 for adults and teens or $10 for children age 12 and younger, are on sale at the Port Townsend Food Co-op, 414 Kearney St. Remaining tickets will be sold, up to 30 minutes before curtain time, at the door of the Wheeler Theater just inside the Fort Worden campus at 200 Battery Way.
Ling Hui, who teaches 54 students age 4 to 18, at her school at 210 Polk St., is especially proud of the title piece. Five members of the school’s Committed Performance Group appear in “Whisper,” a modern dance work whose pace moves from slow to soaring.
This weekend’s performances also have intermediate and advanced dancers in “Adagio” from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” and five ballerinas en pointe in “Princess” from “Swan Lake.”
There’s also some attitude here. “I Don’t Care” is the Intermediate Contemporary Dance group’s piece to rock music by Apocalyptica.
The intermediate and advanced students get together again for “And She Was,” a dance to the song by Talking Heads.
Eleven junior dancers lead the way in “Storm,” followed minutes later by nine intermediate students, who dance to more stormy music of Cirque du Soleil.
A Chinese red-ribbon dance, “Legacy,” has eight dancers moving to a soundtrack by Ju Tzong-ching.
“In costume and movement, the dance is quintessential Middle Kingdom,” Ling Hui said.
“This year,” she added, “I am very pleased with the work ethic and attitude of the dancers. I am proud of how willing they are to be challenged . . . The dance performance is their well-deserved moment to shine.”
