University of Minnesota Twin Cities Dance Program attends the 2025 ACDA North Central Regional Conference at University of Wisconsin
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities Dance program sent a group to the five-day 2025 North Central Regional Conference of the American College Dance Association (ACDA), hosted by University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. These conferences offer dance classes, lectures, workshops, and opportunities to perform and present choreography to—and receive feedback from—professional dance artist-adjudicators and audiences of regional peers from university dance programs across Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Northern Illinois, and beyond.
Recent alumna choreographer Rayven Cherry ended the first performance program of the conference with the presentation of her capstone work, in•teriority, performed by Daisi Gomez, Nakeema King, Angelina Pizarro, Ella Quinn, Brett Rogers, and Ray Chè herself. The theater responded thunderously with a standing ovation and kicked off the conference with high spirits.
Undergraduate dance scholar Nakeema King shared her research presentation, “Indigenous Dance is Dance!” to an audience of her peers in a panel discussion, which spurred lively conversation on the topics of indigeneity and contemporary dance practice.
University of Minnesota dance faculty contributed classes to the many offered at the conference: assistant professor jess pretty taught three sessions of her popular and life-giving grooving class; and assistant professor Carlo Antonio Villanueva taught a couple sessions of a class called “BRINGING THE HEAT/ keeping it cool,” a moving meditation on the back-and-forth between heat and cool in training and performance practices.
The UMN Dance program submitted two works to the regional conference for adjudication, with lighting design by Mike Grogan and Villanueva in place as stage manager. Student choreographer Meghan Morgan presented land as One leave as Many, danced by Maia Bergren, Nakeema King, Lola LaFond, Ella Quinn, Monet Slade, and Olivia VanArk. Adjudicators praised the work for its idiosyncratic movement language; one of them said it was an example of what is possible “when structure and performance land in harmony.” Faculty choreographer Carlo Antonio Villanueva presented on and on our way, danced by Alena Corneia, Angelina Pizarro, Ella Quinn, Lindsey Hart, Lola LaFond, Lucy Bowman, Maia Bergren, Max Nieman, Meredith Weston, Mia Grim, Monet Slade, Nakeema King, and Olivia VanArk. One adjudicator called the work “a happening” that presented many “joyful disruptions” and even “violated performative expectations.”
The conference concluded with a gala concert of works selected by adjudicators, for which both UMN pieces were selected. Villanueva’s on and on our way was also selected as an alternate to represent the North Central region at the ACDA National Festival in Washington, D.C. in May. The adjudicators’ remarks for on and on our way read: A richly complex, propulsive, and urgent piece that drips with ease and surprise. A vibrant, deeply connected ensemble takes on an unpredictable journey.
