NIU’s Paula Frasz, an associate professor of dance, continues a DeKalb tradition by bringing Chicago quality entertainment out to the corn fields.

Frasz’s DanceLoop Chicago, an award-winning modern dance company, will perform 8 p.m. Wednesday at DeKalb’s Egyptian Theatre, 135 N. Second Street.

Frasz is dedicated to making big city culture available to the vehicularly-challenged college students of DeKalb.

In 2002, she and Dmitri Peskov started a non-profit dance company to bring high quality, audience-friendly modern dance to Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.

“DanceLoop Chicago uses people that bring a wealth and variety of life experience,” Frasz said. “The show is multi-generational in that I perform, 52-years-old, and some, including three NIU Dance alumni, might have graduated college some eight years ago.”

She may be the oldest to perform at DanceLoop’s DeKalb production, but she has her hand in almost every aspect of the production.

Frasz has received many awards, including the 1999 Ruth Page Award for Artistic Achievement in Choreography from the Chicago Dance Coalition and the 2002 Artists Fellowship for Choreographic Excellence from the Illinois Arts Council.

DanceLoop Chicago has performed in and around Chicago actively for the last three years, performing in Paramount Theater with the Western Symphony Orchestra and in Chicago’s New Athenaeum Theatre. But Frasz, familiar with DeKalb’s theater venues, has chosen to bring her dance company to DeKalb for the first time.

“Our idea was to bring the show and the culture to the students,” Frasz said. “And if it is well received, we’d like to make it an annual production.”

They will perform dance numbers from a decade old to opening debuts – as well as everything in between.

One section of the show, “Scorched Earth,” choreographed by Frasz, depicts a struggle relevant to DeKalb.

Through Frasz’s eclectic dance vocabulary and presentation, the dance segment brings together folk music and modern dance to “set up a community and see it torn asunder,” Frasz said.

Frasz gathers a diverse collection of performers for her shows, but three of her performers may find their show in DeKalb a trip down memory lane.

Tarah Brown, Heather Kroski and Kasey Pennel – all dancers in DanceLoop Chicago and all graduates of NIU Dance in 1998 – were given time to become acclaimed dancers in the Chicago dance scene before they decided to join Frasz.

“DanceLoop Chicago brings together a talented group of individuals,” said Trisha Byro, sophomore dance student. “Frasz has a good, quirky sense of humor, and it comes out in her dancing.”