One of those students, Diane Newman, founder of Happendance and the Wise Women, liked the beautiful, flat grassy space, which didn’t require her group to put down a dance floor and felt good under bare feet.

“When I would walk the campus or bicycle the campus to classes and all, I was always just very impressed at how beautiful the floodplain was,” Newman said. “The river was such a gorgeous backdrop.”

The Wise Women are a group of women in Happendance who remained in the company for its first 20 to 25 years. Newman said they remained close because of their profession, their love for dance, their passion for dance, and the community.

Across the sidewalk from the floodplain, going up the Fairchild Theatre, was a natural incline that provided an amphitheater-like space.

“I had been dreaming about doing something there, even if it was for a choreography class, that if we had to do a site-specific piece of choreography, that maybe I would do it there,” Newman said. “We all agreed that would be a great space. It’s already an outdoor theater that’s very natural, very beautiful and very appealing.”

The idea behind performing in the floodplains was to do something original and creative while taking advantage of Michigan’s summers by offering an outdoor experience. When the group held their first event, they had a small budget of $300. They hired a band in the hope that, while they were playing before the show, passersby would hear the music and be enticed to watch the concert.

“In thinking that through in our planning stages, the idea of it being called Happendance — meaning you might happen upon this wonderful experience — really occurred,” Newman said.

Jesse Gingerich-Jones, an attendee at the event whose mom helped found the company 50 years ago, said, “I grew up watching this. I grew up coming every summer and just dancing and running around, and it was just part of my life."

For this year’s event, the company issued a call for choreographers to submit a piece based on the word "legacy" and created the Legacy in Motion Choreographic Commission for the 50th Anniversary.

“We got submissions from all over the country. We even got one from Canada, so we can say we got some international submissions,” Rachel Miller, ceo of Happendance, said.

The panel reviewed all the submissions and narrowed them down to three candidates. They published the three finalists on the website and issued a call for community members to vote for their favorite.

The concert opened with an intergenerational piece called “Looking Forward,” choreographed by guest choreographer Olivia Schaffer with 17 dancers aged 22 to 76.

“One of her biggest throughlines with her proposal was that she was really passionate about creating intergenerational work, and we are also very passionate about that at Happendance,” Miller said. “It was really special, so we wanted to open the show with that.”

Miller also choreographed a new piece called “Traces” for six of the Wise Women.

“That’s sort of the perspective of looking at the past, and the present, and the future. I think it’s just a great show,” Newman said.

“Generally, when I was in college — and before that and even now — if you really were serious as a dancer, you went off to New York, or you went to LA; you didn’t stay here, but we did,” she said.

Newman said she always had a vision that if someone is strong, resourceful and talented enough, they would be able to live in Lansing and contribute to it while still having a meaningful life, such as raising children. She wanted to combat the idea that once someone becomes a dancer, they’re unable to raise a family because it interrupts their career. They began to call themselves the Wise Women as a tongue-in-cheek.

Other pieces performed during Friday’s event included a trio performing “Sentimental Mood,” a five-person piece performing “Chew it Up, Spit it Out” by Leanne Schmidt and a piece based on the book “The Legend of Sleeping Bear” choreographed by Mary Jane Gamble, who’s friends with the illustrator.

The concert concluded with an old piece called “Cosmic Buccaneers.”

“It’s a piece I choreographed for the company in 1980 when there was the whole excitement about the "Star Wars" movies because they had just come out in ’75,” Newman said. “There was the "Star Trek" series on TV, and there was just all of this fascination by the world at large of outer space, going to the moon, going beyond the moon, all these things. It was very exciting for me to immerse myself in that entire movement.”

The piece is about a group of adventurers who go off together in a rocket ship. After they’ve explored the galaxy, they go off into the distance. The piece was reconstructed at least five times because audiences loved it so much.

“It’s just really a fascinating piece,” Newman said, adding that the event is very significant to her.

“As you age as an athlete, there isn’t often a lot of opportunity for you to continue to do what brought you so much joy,” Newman said. “Dance is athletic, yes, but it is not a sport; it is art. I’m not sure you can ever actually rid yourself of that satisfaction that comes from being an artist. It’s just it comes through being an athletic artist.”

The Wise Women pulled back as a group due to the rigorous nature of training and having to maintain their personal lives.

“We (Wise Women) did pull back, but we never stopped dancing. So, it’s very significant to me to actually have an opportunity now to actually go back and perform, to share something I know I’m good at with my community, who I totally love and adore, for all the support they’ve given us for 50 years. This is very significant for me for sure,” Newman said. “Even though I’m not going to necessarily be here in another 50 years, I’m looking forward to whatever is next for this company, and I do it with joy.”