College Dance - American College Dance Festival Association schedule for 1999/2000

Dance Magazine, Sept, 1999 by Marian Horosko

American College Dance Festival association On Target

The American College Dance Festival Association 1999/2000 will reach its goal of festival sites secured in all nine of its national membership regions next year.

According to ACDFA executive director, Paul Organisak, "Over the past eight to ten years, our regional festivals have been filled to capacity. The continuing popularity of ACDFA is testament to the health and vitality of dance in higher education."

Each regional festival features three-day workshops, adjudicated performances, and master classes in jazz, ballet, modern, improvisation, ballroom, and African. The festivals provide an opportunity for students and faculty to have their dance works adjudicated by a panel of nationally recognized dance professionals in an open and constructive forum. Works are selected for their artistic quality and are the primary means for college and university dance programs to perform outside their own academic setting and to be exposed to the diversity of the national college dance world.

Biennially, the association holds a national college dance festival. This year, the ninth national will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park, on May 18-20, 2000.

ACDFA'S 1999-2000 SCHEDULE OF FESTIVALS

* NEW ENGLAND: January 21-23 Bates College, Lewiston, ME; (207) 786-6157 or 6123; fax (207) 786-6123

* MID-ATLANTIC: March 1-5 James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA; (540) 568-3926 or 6511; fax (540) 568-7858

* CENTRAL: March 15-18 Wichita State University, Wichita, KS.; (316) 978-3645; (316) 978-3071

* NORTHEAST: March 15-18 SUNY College at Brockport, Brockport, NY; (716) 395-5302 or 2153; fax (716) 395-5134.

* SOUTH-CENTRAL: March 15-18 Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA; (504) 549-2133; fax (504) 549-5119

* SOUTHEAST: March 15-19 Brenau University, Gainesville, GA; (770) 534-6249; fax (770) 534-6282

* NORTHWEST: March 15-18 University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; (801) 581-7327; fax (801) 581-5442

* GREAT LAKES: March 16-18 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI; (313) 577-6155 or 4273; fax (313) 577-5691

* SOUTHWEST: March 29-April 1 California State University, Long Beach, CA; (562) 985-4747; fax (562) 985-7696

For further information, contact Paul Organisak, ACDFA, 4431 Lehigh Road, #399, College Park, MD 20740-3127; (301) 405-8552; fax (301) 405-8551.

Purchase Gets Harkness Grant

Purchase College in Purchase, New York, was the recipient of a Harkness Choreographers' Space Grant for the twelfth consecutive year. The grant focuses on enhancing the creative and rehearsal process by offering selected choreographers the opportunity to work with their dancers in state-of-the-art studios located in the award-winning Purchase College dance building. Nine studios were available this year.

To apply for space in 2000, contact Gwen Acoba, Purchase College, Conservatory of Dance, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577-1400; (914) 251-6806; fax (914) 251-6800 or e-mail: dance@purchase.edu. Purchase College can be reached by train or bus from New York City. Partial reimbursement for travel expense is available to participants.

Jazz and Tap in New Mexico

The University of New Mexico gave its first annual Rhythm Tap Dance Festival June 19 to 25. The program included an intensive workshop in rhythm tap and jazz dance for students of all levels. Featured was Jump Rhythm Jazz Dance Technique, taught by Jeannie Hill, and Rhythm Tap, taught by Bruce Stegmann and Hill.

In addition, members of the Bill Evans Dance Company, including Evans, Skip Randall, Sara Hutchinson, and Mark Yonally, with guest artist Jefferson Voorhees, offered a variety of courses in tap technique, repertory, tap/jazz improvisation, fundamentals of movement, stretch/strengthening, and injury prevention. University credit was available.

For future events, contact Sandy Edwards, UNM Dance Department, Albuquerque, NM 87131; (505) 277-3660.

Banff Arts Festival

The Banff Arts Festival, at the Banff Centre for the Arts in the beautiful wilderness region of Alberta, Canada, presented a season, May to August, of aboriginal dance, visual arts, dance, jazz, opera, and music.

Under the leadership of dance program director Brian Macdonald, some twenty-five professional dancers from across Canada benefited, during a six-week residency, by working in classes, studio rehearsals, and onstage rehearsals in a professional company environment. This year's program featured a world premiere by Allen Kaeja, the 1999 Clifford E. Lee recipient of the Choreography Award, Macdonald's Time Out of Mind, and Balanchine's The Four Temperaments.

Kaeja, artistic director of Toronto's Kaeja d'Dance, entered the world of modern dance in 1981 after nine years of wrestling and judo. His past works have been presented internationally and in Canada Dance Festivals. A recent work was created for Sweden's Norrdans.

Banff also holds auditions for a dance program, headed by Annette Av Paul, for seventy selected dancers from across Canada between the ages of thirteen and twenty. It is for an intense five-week training course in ballet, modern, and jazz that culminates in four performances.