After months of practicing endurance, dancing, cardio, sit-ups and stretching, the EIU Dancers are ready to put on their annual spring show, “Dangerously in Love.”

The dancers will perform their routine three times starting at 7 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday at the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

“Dangerously in Love” will be a culmination of 18 dance performances to 18 different songs choreographed by five of the team’s dancers as well as guest choreographers and the team’s directors.

One of the choreographers, Natalie Standley, a sophomore communication studies major, said the performances will center on the subject of love and everything that comes with it.

“The heart of the show is love,” Stanley said. “The different challenges, perks and the happiness that comes with love and it should be a really fun event.”

The dancers have worked on this piece for about nine months. They started planning the show in July and August, had auditions in September and have been learning and practicing their dances ever since.

The performances will vary in genres of music such as contemporary, jazz, lyrical, hip-hop, tap and musical theater.

Standley, who choreographed a tap piece and a lyrical piece, said that her interest in dancing started at a very young age and she has enjoyed it so much that it led her to joining the EIU Dancers her freshman year.

“I started dancing when I was three years old and I have been dancing ever since then, all the way through high school and into college,” Standley said.

Standley went on to say that she really hopes the crowd comes and enjoys the show because dance has a way of reaching everyone even if they are not dancers themselves.

“Dance is so expressive and our show ‘Dangerously in Love’ is so expressive that I feel like anyone can relate to the messages that we’re conveying,” Standley said.

Olivia Link, a junior psychology and foreign languages major, talked about the rigorous dance schedule the team has had in order to prepare for the show.

“We have two company practices a week where we learn technique, endurance and conditioning,” Link said. “The other two nights of the week we learn the specific dances of the section, spending one hour on each dance and we do that for six weeks.”

Link said, like her co-dancer Standley, she has also danced since she was a child. However her time there has been off and on moments in her dancing career.

‘’I’ve been dancing ever since I was a little kid,” Link said. “There was one point in junior high where I  tried to be a sports kid and I sucked at it so I ended up going back to dance.”

For the show, Link has choreographed a contemporary piece and a lyrical piece and said aside from an entertaining aspect, she wants to evoke emotions from the crowd to share experiences with the dancers.

“I want the crowd to enjoy the show. When we dance we’re enjoying it and we’re drawing from points in our lives where we’ve felt these certain emotions,” Link said. “We’re hoping that we can also bring out those emotions in the crowd when they’re watching a dance or listening to a song, putting them in that emotive state with us.”

Darronte Matthews can be reached at 581-2812 or dqmatthews@eiu.edu.