Dance Festival Spotlights College Choreography

Author: Kate Prouty

When a friend congratulates and compliments you after a performance, it is difficult to tell whether he is truly impressed and being sincere or just being your friend. This is the perpetual downfall of always performing in your own safe academic setting.

Middlebury College dancers Sean Hoskins '02, Nicole LeBoeuf '02, David Moan '04, Jacci Snyder '05 and Kate Prouty '02 took the opportunity to test their skills in more objective waters this past weekend at the American College



Dance Festival (ACDF). Hosted by Boston University (BU), this was the New England section of nine regional festivals. This annual event, the concept for which emerged in 1971, invites colleges in the area to present both faculty and student choreographed pieces in hopes of raising college-level standards for dance and offering students the opportunity to have their work adjudicated and critiqued by established professionals.



Each school can perform up to two pieces and each must be under 12 minutes in length. The New England festival saw 45 pieces performed in informal, adjudicated concerts from which the judges chose only 11 to be performed on Sunday, Feb. 17, in a gala concert open to the public at BU's Tsai Performance Center. From these 11 dances only one or two will be selected based on outstanding artistic merit to be performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington D.C., at the association's biennial National Festival.

Between adjudicated performances during the regional festivals, participating dancers easily occupied their time with a choice of over 50 professional workshops and classes, two informal showings, a faculty concert and auditions for various summer programs.

In this way, ACDF not only tunes students into professionals' ideas about their work, but also provides them with an opportunity to check out what other college dance programs in the area are investigating artistically. By performing outside of their own academic environment, dancers are exposed to the diversity of college dance on a national level. ACDF fosters this national awareness in order to cultivate college students as a substantial resource for the emerging professional dance scene. In order to emphasize the value of the educational process, ACDF encourages a non-threatening and non-competitive environment with their judging.

As always, this year's judges, Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Mark Taylor and Donna Uchizono, all had impressive credentials, boasting experience with dance, teaching and critique.

Although they have years more expertise than the dancers, the judges phrased their commentary in a positive and supportive way. They addressed choreographic issues like clarity of objectives, pace, spacing, choreographic creativity, music and costumes.

In theory, ACDF encourages a friendly competition between colleges, emphasizing above all the importance of coming together to promote their common artistic cause. However, this goal tends to be slightly tainted by the fierce nature of competition. Nobody is pulling hair or biting, but it is certainly an 'every man for himself' situation in which all 30 participating schools would like to be spotlighted in the gala concert.

Perhaps it is the sheer multitude of colleges and thus wide variety of styles brought to the Festival that create this competetive atmosphere. For example, the Middlebury dancers seemed somewhat estranged by the large amount of ballet-oriented dance that was shown. New England colleges tend to emphasize ballet and foster strong technical skills in their dancers whereas Middlebury College places the majority of its instruction emphasis neither on prior nor continuing technical training.

Although very talented and physically strong, the typical Middlebury dancer does not often still practice ballet or jazz dance and quite often has just begun his or her dancing career upon arrival at the College. Despite this fact, or perhaps as a result of it, the two pieces that the College presented, choreographed separately by Hoskins and Dance Artist-in-Residence Amy Chavasse, stood out from the others for their artistic ingenuity.

In fact, Hoskins's piece, "So, We Pivot," performed by Hoskins, Snyder and Prouty, made a strong enough impression on the adjudicators to be picked out of 45 dances as one of the 11 pieces for the gala concert.

It kicked off the performance at BU on Feb. 17.

The adjudicators had positive things to say about both Middlebury dances.

They also provided some constructive criticism and advice for problematic areas.

In fact, Chavasse's piece, "Paradise," will most likely be performed on campus this spring in conjunction with Hoskins's senior independent dance project. Hoskins is planning on composing a duet and a quintet, and perhaps, along with Chavasse's work, showcasing a quartet choreographed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance, Peter Schmitz on April 26 and 27 in the College's Dance Theater.