An evening of mortality, hardship and “uncovering layers of self” flowed on stage at the Marsee Auditorium on Saturday, March 2.

Over 100 people attended “An Evening of Dance,” showcasing two performances led by two dance companies from California State University Long Beach.

The first was a 60-minute performance titled “Series: passage,” led by Keith Johnson, a dance professor at Cal State Long Beach and choreographer for his dance company Keith Johnson/Dancers.

The second was a 30-minute performance titled “Dig” by Rebecca Lemme, an associate dance professor at Cal State Long Beach and choreographer for her dance company Acts of Matter.

During the first performance, Keith Johnson/Dancers showcased free-form dance expressions of death. The six dancers interpreted a solo rendition of the same routine, ending their performance by sitting up straight and still in wooden chairs.

“I just decided to focus on death and all the aspects of that…how we look at death, and part of it like birth, can be viewed differently,” Johnson said.

The music for the production resembled each dancer’s expression of death, with a variation of house and instrumental music combined with spoken word poetry.

After seeing the rendition depict death six times through each dancer, Brandon Cross, an audience member who came with a friend to support the performance, said, “I haven’t formed an opinion yet; I need to let it sit with me.”

The six members of Keith Johnson/Dancers who performed “Series: passage” were Haihua Chiang, Stephanie Liapis, Eliza Loran, Andrew Merrell, Adrien Padilla and Andrew Palomares.

The second performance, “Dig,” showcased three women, highlighted by neutral lighting with hanging bulbs.

When the music started, a mix of instrumental and house music was played on stage to showcase the stages of the dance.

Lemme said exploring this was a combination of “female camaraderie” and “three versions of self.”

The three members of Acts of Matter who showcased the piece were Tess Hewlett, Kaelie Osorio and Alex Rix.

“This is a work that expresses the idea of self-excavation and what it feels like to try and uncover layers of yourself that have been hidden or dormant for a while,” Lemme said.

During the 15-minute intermission, a few people stretched their legs and had snacks or drinks. T.J. Spaur, a former student of Johnson’s, had thoughts on the performance from Johnson’s dance troupe.

“I like seeing different interpretations, different movements,” Spaur said. “Whoever was performing it, some had an angry take about it. Some were calm and mellow.”

Odessa Newman, a Cal State Long Beach graduate, watched in support of “Dig” and her former professor Lemme.

“I felt like they were searching for something but that something was already there,” Newman said about the performance.

Another Cal State Long Beach graduate, Imran Khan, expressed his thoughts on “Series: passage” and “Dig.”

“It was lovely,” Khan said. “I am going to need to let it sit for a little while, but it was gorgeous.”