Student Choreographer Recognized at Regional Dance Conference

Members of The Department of Performing Arts and Technology’s State Dance Company ended their spring break attending the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Mid-Atlantic Conference, hosted this year at Meredith College.

ACDA supports and promotes dance talent and creativity in dance departments across eleven United States regions. An annual four-day conference takes place in each area, offering student dancers the chance to attend performances, workshops, panels, and classes led by instructors from around the country. Participating colleges and universities also have the unique opportunity to present up to two pieces for adjudication. Through a blind adjudication process, students and faculty receive open and constructive feedback on their works from a panel of nationally recognized dance professionals. The conference concludes with a formal Gala Concert featuring the pieces that stood out to the adjudicators among those presented in that region.

This year, the State Dance Company presented two pieces for adjudication. The first piece, Could you hold the line?, was choreographed by Savanah Buck, a current Biochemistry major and recipient of the NC State Creative Artist Award in choreography. The second work representing the university was a quartet titled Constellations, choreographed by department faculty member Amy Love Beasley.

The adjudication panel gave both pieces overwhelmingly positive feedback and selected Could you hold the line? to be one of the pieces performed in the regional Gala Concert on the conference’s final day. This is an exciting honor for any choreographer, as pieces chosen for the Gala Concert demonstrate exemplary artistic quality.

“I was pretty shocked and wasn’t sure how to feel about it,” says Buck. “It was a really foreign feeling to experience such a wide acceptance for something that I made, but I was so proud of my cast for all the work they put in this semester, and their performance was amazing that week.”

You can see Could you hold the line? and Constellations, among other performances, at the State Dance Company Concert on April 4 and 5 at 7 p.m. in Stewart Theatre.