Benefit Lets Dancers ‘Do Something’ With Art : Concert: Organizer of Inland AIDS Project fund-raiser had no trouble finding volunteers. Two O.C. residents will take part.

Like many people, Jo Dierdorff, director of dance at Riverside Community College, has felt personally challenged by the AIDS crisis. “I’ve lost so many dance friends and colleagues in other fields to the disease, I just decided I had to do something,” she said in a recent phone interview from her Riverside home.

“But I’m not rich. I don’t have time to volunteer. We can’t package our dances and sell them to raise money. But we can produce a concert.”

And that’s just what she began doing two years ago, drawing entirely on voluntary efforts from dancers and choreographers, as well as musicians, technical personnel and even the people who typeset and print the programs. Installment three, entitled “Dancers for Life III . . . The Journey Continues,” is tonight at 8 at the 1,400-seat Landis Auditorium at the college.

Participants include Orange County dancer-choreographers Karen Shanley and Frances Zappella, as well as others from Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties. Shanley is head of the dance department at Orange Coast College. Zappella teaches Pilates Technique at the Jimmie DeFore studios in Costa Mesa.

All proceeds will go to the Inland AIDS Project, which provides various services to people living in the San Bernardino and western Riverside area. Last year, the concert raised $7,000 for IAP. By comparison, a small number of benefit tickets for the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s Chanticleer Christmas program at the Performing Arts Center raised $4,500 for AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County.

“The first year,” Dierdorff said, “I called people I knew in and around the area and asked if they wanted to participate. Everyone without exception said, ‘Yes, this is something I can do with my art.’ It was such a wonderful experience. It was the most stress-free concert I’ve ever produced.”

Not all of the pieces outwardly deal with AIDS. “There have always been pieces that have been choreographed in memory of someone or for someone,” she said. “So there are some that do deal directly with the issue. But more often the concert has been simply a collection of different people’s pieces.

“There’s a real assortment of works. . . . This year I think we have more pieces than in previous years that do deal directly with it.”

Altogether there will be 12 dance works and one music composition on the program. The music piece, “Into the Abyss,” for percussion with electronic enhancement, by Mark Berres and Scott Vance, will be receiving its premiere.

The dance style of the concert is “predominantly modern,” although there is some tap, Dierdorff said. “Also, for the first time, we will have a company from Mexico doing two pieces. Usually, everyone does one, but these folks are coming such a long way.” The company is Paralelo 32, a modern-dance group from the State University of Baja California.

Orange County’s Zappella has participated in the series since the beginning. “It really makes me feel good that I can do something like this to help someone else.”

For this program, Zappella has choreographed a new piece called “The Hour Glass,” to music composed for this work Jeff Mayor, a composer for the Orange Coast College dance department.

“This one doesn’t have an AIDS theme, but it could relate to the AIDS crisis,” Zappella said recently. “Basically, I was trying to create an effect of how time affects our lives. My goal was to try to leave the audience feeling the relentless ticking away of time in our life.”

Added Dierdorff: “The concerts really have been wonderful, very strong and very exciting. All these small modern companies scrape to make a living. So I think it’s wonderful when people still want to donate all this time and energy. And it takes a heck of a lot of energy to do a concert.”

“Dancers for Life III . . . The Journey Continues,” a concert to benefit the Inland AIDS Project will be given tonight at 8 in Landis Auditorium, Riverside Community College, 4800 Magnolia Ave., Riverside. Tickets: $10 and $25 (includes reserved seating and post-concert reception). (714) 684-9337.