What would you say to a Friday-night event that stirs your creative juices, makes you think in an unaccustomed vein and provides cultural enrichment to boot? This Friday is one of the rare occasions when such an event will occur in DeKalb.

The Campus Activities Board presents, as part of its Fine Arts Series, the nationally acclaimed Utah Repertory Dance Theatre. Show time and place are 8 p.m. Friday at the Egyptian Theatre, 132 N. 2nd St. Tickets cost $4 for NIU students, $6 for non-NIU students and senior citizens and $10 for non-students. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the Sandburg Box Office (noon—6 p.m.) and the Junction Book Room.

RDT, founded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the University of Utah, has been performing for the last 23 years and boasts a repertoire of more than 80 years of modern dance history.

RDT Artistic Director Linda C. Smith said the company is “technically very strong. (The dancers are both) artists and athletes.”

She said the coming performance offers several “different contemporary visions” along the “spectrum of what’s going on in dance throughout the nation.

Each of the productions’ five choreographers demonstrates a distinctive style, she said. A motif for the production, Smith said, might be a smorgasbord of conceptual choreography in modern dance.

Choreographer Beth Corning, who recently returned from Sweden where she directed and performed in her own company, is known for her dramatic pieces, Smith said. Through dramatic dance, she communicates human feelings, she said.

Choreographer David Parsons, on the other hand, is known for incorporating humor into dance, Smith said. She explained his philosophy that dance has been far too serious for too long; people need to laugh. She described his piece, “The Envelope,” as “full, beautiful and witty.” This piece is performed to the music of opera composer Goacchino Rossini, Smith said.

Smith describes the work of Margaret Jenkins as post modern choreography, influenced by the techniques of Cunningham, 1950’s leader of avant-garde movement in dance. This “sculptural, linear” style of dance “shattered previous ideas of movement and space” in dance; it adds the element of chance, she said.

One of Charles Moulton’s works, “New Suit,” is a duet which Smith described as “a pure movement piece—very athletic, fun to watch.”

The final dance, “Pigs and Fishes,” choreographed by Elisa Monte, Smith called “the dessert of the program.” She described the movement in this work as ranging from “driving, compelling and stark to moving and sensual.”

Smith describes the production as a “wonderful theatrical dance meal.” People unfamiliar with dance, she said, will be surprised. RDT will make them feel they’ve been missing out and make them want to see more, she said.

Dance is part of our culture, Smith said, and always has been. It “should entertain and make (people) think.”