Dance Students Attend the 2024 ACDA North Regional Conference
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities Dance program sent a group to the four-day 2024 North Central Regional Conference of the American College Dance Association (ACDA), hosted by St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. These conferences offer dance classes and opportunities to perform and present choreography to professional dance artist-adjudicators and audiences of regional peers from university dance programs across Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Northern Illinois, and beyond.
Student choreographer Claire Wilcox kicked off the conference as the first performance in the first informal studio sharing with the presentation of their latest piece, 4 Spilled Beans, danced by and with Ophelia Becker, Talia Marcus, Hina Sasaki.
Two student works were submitted to the conference for adjudication: choreographer Nakeema King presented Assimilation, danced by and with Maia Bergren, Meghan Morgan, Brett Rogers, Hina Sasaki, Samantha Schreck, and Claire Wilcox; and choreographer Camille Staats presented Flamingos in Wisconsin, danced by Liana Johnson, Lola LaFond, Ella Quinn, Stella Stockton.
University of Minnesota dance faculty contributed classes to the many offered at the conference: Kealoha Ferreira co-taught “Practicing Ensemble” with Parisha Rajbhandari (Minnesota State University, Mankato); and assistant professor Carlo Antonio Villanueva taught a Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company repertory class.
The conference concluded with a gala concert of works selected by adjudicators, which included both Nakeema King’s Assimilation and Camille Staats’ Flamingos in Wisconsin. Congratulations to all on their hard work and recognition among other university dance programs and professionals in the region!
