At last Thursday's rehearsal, Southeast Missouri State University dance instructor Philip Edgecombe didn't have his students practice in front of studio mirrors. He turned them around and had them rehearse while facing what they were dancing about -- the Mississippi River.

Edgecombe's choreographed suite is split into four parts and was inspired out of the exhibition "A Song from the Field," showing until Oct. 25 at the Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum at the River Campus.

He said when Southeast hosted the American College Dance Association Central Region Conference in March, one of the gallery spaces in the museum was used as a studio.

"It's a beautiful space, and I was like, 'It would be really neat to have dance in here,'" Edgecombe said.

Edgecombe said he worked with museum director Peter Nguyen to come up with a collaborative project for the following season. He said he was immediately hooked when he saw "A Song from the Field" was inspired out of the roots of blues music. With the subject of blues, it easily fit to be choreographed.

"Then I started just listening and just immersing myself in blues music," Edgecombe said. "I think being here and seeing the Mississippi River and having that connection, having that growth [provided inspiration]."

Edgecombe said the choreography is still in its early, developmental stages and probably even will be at the performance scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 9 in the Crisp Museum. But it's meant to be that way. The finished product will be performed at Fall for Dance in November.

Designed in a suite form, Edgecombe explained that the music connects through the broad genre of blues, but there's not necessarily anything like character development between sections.

"I wanted to enjoy the music more than dealing with the stories that they're necessarily telling," Edgecombe said. "I mean, you have to deal with heartbreak when you're talking about blues, so some of them are narrative, but not all of them are narrative. Some of them are just happening in a scene."

He's working to bring the music to the forefront rather than a storyline.

"I usually work in a very contemporary manner, and my work is usually first about the movement that I'm getting," Edgecombe said. "This way, I'm definitely starting with the music."

Etta James' "All I Could Do Was Cry" demands not only a different emotional approach, but a separate mindset altogether for dance styles compared to "Deep River" by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama or Son House's "John the Revelator."

On the other hand, "Life by the Drop" by Stevie Ray Vaughan is choreographed based on West Coast Swing. Edgecombe said the first three sections came together pretty quickly, but although he has a background in dancing ballroom, choreographing partner dancing was its own sort of animal.

Nevertheless, the dissociation between the pieces gives each a singular message.

"So each day we come in, and it's kind of like we're starting a new dance with a new idea," performer Kim Volkmann said.

The six performers have their individual backgrounds, too. Volkmann has a solo in "All I Could Do Was Cry," but comes from both contemporary and ballet-heavy training. She said Edgecombe's work is the first she's done of any style designated toward blues.

Martiqua Hopkins was born in Mississippi and raised in Tennessee and blues is, more or less, how she got her start.

"As far as the music goes, I grew up listening to the blues, so I'm home almost with what's going on, what the music is talking about," Hopkins said.

She said this is her senior year and her last Fall for Dance, so it seems a fitting way to go out.

"The style of dance and the music that we're using is really close to why I started dancing," Hopkins said. "So for me to be able to be a part of that and share that with them means a lot to me."

They recognize they all have something to bring to the table.

Volkmann said weight-sharing is used more than lifts between the cast, thus building connection.

"Two people leap over [Hopkins], and then I soar over her," Volkmann said. "So within 10 seconds, you're looking at the entire cast having a moment of connection."

Hopkins said meaning comes out of what they're trying to communicate as performers and what they're feeling as dancers.

It's ultimately a work in progress, but it's moving forward because the work is done as a team.

"That's the exciting thing about doing a piece almost every day, the fact that it's a suite," Volkmann said. "It's that every day we walk away from here and we're like, 'We did something, we created an entire concept.'"