Collin Dance Ensemble earns remarkable 11th gala honor

The Collin Dance Ensemble was selected to perform an original work by a Collin College professor at the gala concert of the American College Dance Association(ACDA)South-Central Region Conference earlier this month. The gala selection was the 11^th for the Collin College Dance Department, an unprecedented feat for a community college.

Professor Tiffanee ArnoldsHIVEwas selected for the gala concert in a blind adjudication process where the adjudicators know only the title of the dance and the year that it was choreographed. Thirty-nine dances, choreographed by faculty, students, and guest artists, and performed by students ranging from community collegesto universities withgraduate programs, were submittedfor adjudication. Of those 39 dances, 11 were selected for the gala concert.

The piece was performed by the Collin Dance Ensemble, 16 of whom traveled with Arnold, Professor Meghan Cardwell-Wilson, and Associate Dean Courtney Mulcahy to the conference at Sam Houston State University, March 6-9.

The adjudicators remarked that Arnolds choreography featured a beautiful tableau of bodies stunning and a soloist plucked out and framed stellar on an elevated platform. The Collin Dance Ensemble was commended for their agility and dexterity and ability to become the image within the dance.

Student Kay Fisher also presented her choreography,Opalescent, and adjudicators remarked on its sense of architecture and design and well-rehearsed and tightly produced quality. In addition to performing in the adjudicated and gala concerts, students also performed Emily Boones 13:8in the informal concert.

Each day students took four dance master classes and experienced two full-length dance concerts. Feedback sessions provided an opportunity for students to hear the adjudicators feedback on each work in the concert, and a transfer fair allowed students to hear faculty from universities speak about their dance departments and share resources.

Cardwell-Wilson and Mulcahy presented/taught master classes for conference participants. Along with Arnold, they alsoparticipatedin dance master classes as professional development.

Arnoldplayed a significant role in the conference, as she isin her fifth year as regional director of the ACDA South-Central Conference.