Philip Edgecombe and Hilary Peterson want to teach students more about dancing professionally. The couple wants to give dancers in the community an outlet to still perform. And they want to grow and educate the dance audience in Cape Girardeau.

Their trifold solution: pH eXchange, the area's first professional dance company.

Edgecombe and Peterson said they have always wanted to start a dance company and have talked about it since they met in 2003 in the master's program at the University of Arizona.

Members of pH eXchange are, from left, Caleb Schaaf, Hilary Peterson, Philip Edgecombe and Jennica Joseph. (Fred Lynch)

They bit the bullet in May. They rented a practice space, recruited two other dancers and started building a 50-minute "evening length" show.

"Coupling and Other Things That Stick to Your Feet" debuted July 18 at the Rust Flexible Theater for about 50 people. After that run, Peterson, Edgecombe, Caleb Schaaf and Jennica Joseph took the show to the Kansas City Fringe Festival, performing for audiences varying from five to 25 people.

"It made me realize I still want to perform my best. Even if it's for five people, it's what I want to do," said Caleb Schaaf, a musical performance major about to enter his sophomore year at Southeast Missouri State University.

Edgecombe and Peterson are dance instructors at the university. Ever the teachers, they said they were excited to give students the chance to stay in Cape Girardeau and perform in a dance company because normally students would have to travel or only dance in school productions during the year.

"This is my first experience outside of school," Schaaf said. "There was more responsibility in it."

In university productions "we have to come and dance," Schaaf said. With pH eXchange, the dancers had to promote themselves, fund the trip, take care of their own costumes and be organized.

Peterson said the level of work and commitment required may keep pH eXchange from performing often during the school year. She and Edgecombe teach classes and choreograph for Southeast's dance concerts and their largest pool of dancers take classes and perform in Southeast's dance concerts and other productions.

The four dancers practiced three hours a day, four days a week for nine weeks.

"If we did something during the school year it would be less," Peterson said, adding that community involvement will dictate how active the company is during the school year.

The demand to see dance would need to be there, she said, but also former dancers in the community would need to come out.

"The community members might be what keeps us able to perform during the year," Peterson said.

She and Edgecombe said part of starting pH eXchange was giving older dancers -- people who studied dance in college, but followed a different career path or people who had a dance minor -- an outlet and a stage.

"I would love to find those people," Peterson said. "If you're willing to put in the time and give us your energy, we want it."

The couple said they will hold auditions for dancers in advance of shows or fringe festival performances. Fringe festivals, like the one in Kansas City, gather various types of performers like dancers, actors, mimes and others to present their talents on different stages for different audiences.

"It'll kind of always be a smaller dance company" because of travel expenses, Peterson said.

Someday pH eXchange might have several base members and a smaller traveling group, but Edgecombe and Peterson said interest must build and audiences and older dancers have to come out.

charris@semissourian.com

388-3641

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