THD Students Excel at American College Dance Association Festival

Congratulations to the 20 students and faculty members who represented the Department of Theatre and Dance (THD) and UB at the American College Dance Association (ACDA) North East Regional Conference Festival at the University of Rochester, March 7-10, 2024.

Associate Teaching Professor Kerry Ring is the ACDA Regional Faculty Representative. “I’ve taken students to the conference every year since 2011, and Professors Tressa Gorman Creehan and Anne Burnidge coordinated it before then,” Ring said. “UB has been an institutional member for more than 30 years and ACDA recently celebrated its 50^th anniversary. We’ve also hosted the conference in Buffalo a number of times. It’s a regular part of our practice.”

ACDA’s primary focus is to support and promote the wealth of talent and creativity prominent throughout college and university dance departments. It sponsors 11 regional conferences and the biannual National College Dance Festival to provides venues for students and faculty to engage in three to four days of performances, workshops, panels, and guest artist classes taught by instructors from around the region and country.

The THD contingent included MFA Dance graduate students Josh Ikechukwu, Natasha McCandless and Hannah Walter, who taught specialized classes. Undergraduate dancers included Dantrae Alonso, Charity John, Lily Colligan, Sophia Fino, Abby Hankinson, Oliva Lopez, Mario Liguori, Morgan Mahoney, Gia Maresca, Delia Mandik, Kelly Quinn, Mya Tran, Nina Tucker, and NJ Wingo, accompanied by faculty members Ring and Michael Deeb Weaver, who also taught classes in this extension of our curricular season to the regional and national levels.

ACDA conferences are the primary means for college and university dance programs to perform outside their own academic setting and to gain exposure to the diversity of college dance throughout the United States. “It’s a four-day schedule with a thick agenda, from morning to night,” Ring explained. “Professors and graduate students from 30 different schools present classes, so whenever our students aren’t performing they take classes from other institutions. There were over 400 participants.”

A primary purpose of the conference is the unique 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.

A primary purpose of the conference is the unique 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.

Here is a complete list of activities in which THD students participated:

• Adjudicated Dance performance #1: “Zam Ekpele” (2023) Choreographed by Josh Ikechukwu (Performed by: Joshua Ikechukwu, Dantrae Alonso, Charity John, Lily Colligan, Abby Hankinson, Oliva Lopez, Delia Mandik, Kelly Quinn, Mya Tran, Nina Tucker, NJ Wingo  - SM Mario Liguori)
• Adjudicated Dance Performance #2: “Sweet Sue” (2024) Choreographed and performed by Kelly Quinn and NJ Wingo – SM Morgan Mahoney
• Informal Dance Performance: “A Pulsação” (2024) Choreographed by Amy VanKirk (Dancers: Lily Colligan, Abby Hankinson, Olivia Lopez, Delia Mandik, Kelly Quinn, Nina Tucker – SM Gia Maresca)
• ScreenDance Presented: “Remember Then, Now” by Sofia Fino
• Josh Ikechukwu (MFA): Taught two African Dance and Drum classes
• Hannah Walter (MFA): Taught “Incorporation of Objects in Movement”
• Natasha McCandless (MFA): Taught Intermediate Theatre Jazz
• Michael Deeb Weaver (Faculty): Taught Intermediate/Advanced Theatre Jazz
• Kerry Ring (Faculty): Taught Intermediate Ballet

“The adjudicated performances are limited to two per school, and there were 48 performances in all,” Ring said. “The three adjudicators were selected because of their diversity of perspective, aesthetic and gender. After each performance they provided feedback. You learn about how they took in your piece, the perceived weaknesses and strengths. After that each school can go back to the hotel to talk and sift through what it means and what it might mean going forward.

“We always select pieces which really represent (the breadth of) UB Dance. We’re interested in showcasing our versatility, which is why I felt very proud about bringing Josh Ikechukwu’s African piece, plus a tap piece and a samba-fusion piece, and also the screen (film) dance, as that’s a new course offering for us and another way our dancers are training.

“The final performance of the conference is called The Encore Performance and they had a series of metrics as to how you would get selected. It’s a way to say, ‘Which piece would you like to see again?’ Each school was able to vote for two pieces which weren’t theirs.”

Ikechukwu’s high-octane work “Zam Ekpele” (2023) received special distinction by being chosen to close out The Encore. “Being selected for the Encore Gala Performance is a reflection of a positive vote from your peers, which is why we’re so proud of Josh’s work being selected,” Ring said.

Though there were other works presented at conference featuring African drumming and dance, “Josh’s piece got a bit more feedback because of the interplay of the dancers drumming simultaneously, which elevated it, plus the performance quality of our dancers. It made the piece stand out.”

Ikechukwu, a current MFA Dance student originally from Nigeria, explained that the title “Zam Ekpele” (pronounced zam ache-pel-ay), means “answer my prayer.” “In Africa we believe in the existence of a supernatural being,” Ikechukwu said. “I come one from a tribe whereby we believe in the protection of our ancestors and ancestral power, so most of the time when we have functions and festivities, before we do anything, there is a cleansing of the land just to return all (of) the thanks and all the other things to our ancestors.

“What the dancers chanted in the very beginning means ‘Answer me, answer me, answer me,’ which is a call to these ancestral powers. This is to open the festivities with that worship. ‘Please take heed and answer our prayer.’”

The creation of the work took approximately 14 hours of rehearsal time over several weeks. “During the warm up exercises I sometimes introduced the (African) movement so that when we got to the movement proper it became so easy on their bodies,” Josh said. “It was quite intriguing for me because I felt it would tough to introduce African dance to White bodies, but these students said, ‘Bring it on, bring it on, we got it!’ (laughs) And the only thing I could do was to polish it, with little corrections here and there, and it came out great. The entire process was sweet for me.”

Senior dance student Lily Colligan loved performing the piece at ACDA. “’Zam’ was definitely a new style for me and more difficult in the beginning, since we also learned drumming and singing at the same time,” Colligan said. “Josh did a great job breaking it down piece by piece so we understood the intention behind each aspect. That was really helpful. The repetition of learning it and running it and getting it into our bodies (was great).”

Feedback from the ACDA adjudicators was strong. “Something we heard a lot was that they appreciated that our performers went between the dancing and the drumming and there wasn’t a separation between the other musicians on stage and the dancers. And a lot of the feedback was about how it was very continuous and kept growing.

“The entire Encore performance (including works from other schools) was very celebratory. People were very supportive of one another, and we’d gotten to know a lot of students from other schools at that point. The ending of our piece really picked up the audience, with a big eruption of applause and standing ovations at the end, which was so cool.”

Ring agreed. “We had very positive feedback. The audience was clearly very hungry and happy to have both of the pieces we presented, the African and tap, and they stood out. And in the adjudication we felt very happy about the feedback and discussions that happened. We were seen, and they remarked at how well we did it.”

She also added, “All of the works we brought had a sort of relationship with the audience, and that included the details like our costuming and the dancers wearing (traditional Nigerian) make up. There’s a sense of polish to our works. A part of our training is to help students become employed in the arts, and to also have a relationship with the audience.”

Regarding the conference as a whole, “It’s important for our students to see all of it-what other schools are doing too,” Ring said. “It helps them to understand where we fall and how we make certain choices and how other schools do too, while feeling proud about our processes.”

As a graduating senior, this was Colligan’s first ACDA conference. “A highlight was being able to take new types of classes and learn from instructors (from other institutions). I tried genres that are outside of my normal, which was a great opportunity. I took a Jamaican Dance Hall class with a few other UB students. I also took a contemporary modern class with David Dorfman, which I really enjoyed.”

Post-graduation Colligan is “interested in pursuing performance in the New York City area. I like modern work, like the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Taylor 2, and the (Martha) Graham company. They really inspire me, but I’m very open to different styles.”

“It’s a very fun, intense conference but there’s a whole social process too,” Ring added. “Even within the group of us, we had opportunities to just be with each other and discuss what we saw, and bonding that way. It’s exhausting, inspiring, affirming, and fun!”