RADFORD – The Radford University Department of Dance is presenting Eating Appalachia: Selling Out to the Hungry Ghost, a multimedia dance/theatre piece produced in response to mountaintop removal, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol, Tenn. The performance will also be presented in RU's Bondurant Auditorium at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7 as part of the Appalachian Teacher's Network Conference.

Eating Appalachia: Selling Out to the Hungry Ghost is based on the beauty of Appalachia, its culture and the effects of both mountaintop removal and a consumer driven society. “After an extremely positive response to performances at Radford University, we are excited to tour the work to other communities to inspire dialogue about the multifaceted environmental, cultural and economic issues that affect all Americans,” said Deborah McLaughlin, choreographer and director of the project. McLaughlin’s interest in environmental issues began when she was a dance student in college when she researched the women in Eastern Kentucky who were involved in labor and environmental issues in the 1970s.

McLaughlin, director of RU’s Dance Education program, performed with the Cincinnati Ballet before receiving her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in modern dance from the University of Utah. She was the artistic director of her dance/theatre company, The Movement Society, for ten years in New York. McLaughlin also performed and taught workshops in choreography with the late award winning, multimedia director Lee Nagrin. Internationally, she has taught and presented choreography in Finland and Wales.

Other collaborators for the production include assistant producer and “storyteller”, Theresa Burriss; visual artist, Suzanne Stryk; and composers, Bud Bennett and Don Hall. The performance also includes students from the RU’s Department of Dance.

As a proud native Appalachian originally from Bristol, Burriss, an assistant professor of English and Appalachian Studies at RU, is an activist for the region and its people. She serves as the contributing senior editor of Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and cultural editor of The Journal of Rural Healthcare & Culture.  Her articles have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Appalachian Journal, Appalachian Voice and The New River Voice. Stryk is a native of Bristol, Tenn., and exhibits her conceptual nature paintings throughout the country. Her work is included in many permanent collections including the Smithsonian and the Taubman Museum of Art.

Bennett is an Appalachian musician and stained glass artist who plays all styles of banjo music, including classical, ragtime, rock and bluegrass. Bennett has been running the interlibrary loan office at RU’ McConnell Library since 1990. Hall is current string bass instructor in the Department of Music. Hall composes and conducts West African percussion workshops, orchestral performance and musicological research.

For more information, contact McLaughlin at 540-831-5246 or dmclaughl7@radford.edu.