Students to converge at River Campus for dance conference

A nationally recognized dance conference hosted this year by Southeast Missouri State University is expected to bring more than 400 students from 22 colleges and universities to the Earl and Margie Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts at the River Campus.

The American College Dance Festival Association Central Region Conference is scheduled to begin Sunday and continue through Thursday. It will present nearly 75 dance classes for students including ballet, jazz, tap, modern, contemporary, hip-hop and other styles. Students from Southeast and the visiting colleges will practice their dance routines during the conference. They will have their choreography and performances judged by dance professionals during formal and informal concerts.

"It's March Madness for our majors," said Philip Edgecombe, dance and choreography instructor in Southeast's Department of Theatre and Dance. "Hosting the conference is a huge responsibility, but I think it's really important for us to see what other colleges are doing and for them to see what Southeast is doing."

Dr. Marc Strauss, professor of dance and choreography at Southeast, said students will be instructed by faculty members of the Department of Theatre and Dance and visiting faculty from the visiting colleges. Students will go through an intense period during the conference, Strauss said.

"They will receive the entire dance experience," Strauss said. "Ballet students can take hip-hop classes and tap dancers can take classical ballet. It's a big event, and the important thing is that students will be sharing the experience with like-minded people who love to dance."

In addition to the students being evaluated for their choreography and performances, faculty will be evaluated on how well they instruct. No prizes or awards will be given for their preparation or skill.

"The only prizes are the experience of sharing one's art with others," Strauss said.

The American College Dance Festival Association is the primary national adjudication organization at the college and university level. The central region of the association includes: Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. The regional conference is hosted by member colleges on a rotating basis. Southeast last hosted the event in 2001.

Guest artists include Giordano Jazz Chicago's Zachary Heller, who will teach four classes. Ashley Tate, who has her own contemporary hip-hop company in St. Louis, will teach two classes. Diane DeFries, national director of the American College Dance Festival Association, plans to attend along with several board members, including association president Holly Williams, chairwoman of the Department of Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.

The conference will include three judged dance concerts, two informal concerts and a gala performance open to the public at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall.

"The performance that is open to the public is sort of a 'greatest hits' of the three judged dance concerts," Strauss said. "They will be the best that can be offered."

Tickets for the gala performance are $15 and are available at RiverCampusEvents.com or by calling the River Campus box office at 651-2265.

klewis@semissourian.com

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