The annual Northeast Regional American College Dance Festival was held from March 12 through 16 at The College at Brockport in Brockport, N.Y. and 19 ÌÇÐÄvlog student dancers attended along with Theatre and Dance professor and Director of Dance Lorraine Katterhenry. <\/p>\n
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\u201cWe presented two works for adjudication by a panel of dance professionals,\u201d Katterhenry says. The adjudicators evaluated 50 works of choreography in three days. Both of Montclair State\u2019s entries were selected for inclusion in the festival\u2019s closing Gala performance. \u201cWe were the only school to have both entries selected,\u201d she adds. <\/p>\n
One of the selected works, Save Me<\/em>, was choreographed and performed by dance major Mark Willis, who received his BFA in January. The other work, Oh My Love<\/em>, which was choreographed by dance faculty member Earl Mosley, was further selected to be one of three works that will represent the Northeast Region at the National American College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC from June 5 to 7, 2014. <\/p>\n \u201cThe theme for my piece is the struggle of a troubled man\u2019s soul seeking relief,\u201d says Willis. \u201cMy inspiration came from hearing stories of school shootings and people who have committed suicide. This is a pretty heavy subject, so I was a little apprehensive about doing something like this.\u201d <\/p>\n Willis, however, felt strongly about the topic. \u201cI have a personal connection with the Sandy Hook shootings, as I have a friend whose mother died in that shooting,\u201d he explains. Set to the song \u201cHand Covers Bruise\u201d by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from the soundtrack to The Social Network<\/em>, the dance is about what the shooter might be thinking and feeling in the moments before he decides to take another\u2019s life \u2013 and his own. <\/p>\n Oh My Love<\/em>, a work for eight dancers, is set to a suite of torch songs by Cyndi Lauper. \u201cEarl Mosley is a fantastic choreographer,\u201d says Katterhenry. \u201cHis movement invention, use of syncopation and wonderful use of space make his works satisfying for both the dancers and the audience. His work, which often deals with human relationships, is warm and soulful.\u201d <\/p>\n Katterhenry is looking forward to the National Festival in June. \u201cWe have been selected to perform nine times out of the last 12 National Festivals. It is a tremendous honor to be representing our region at the Kennedy Center in June.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montclair State students perform at Regional American College Dance Festival gala<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":112758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-190_theatre-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}