The 15th Annual Dance Concert was a spectacular night filled with live-action performances. On both nights of the show, it was almost a full house with nearly every seat filled within the audience. The dance concert is held every year and offers students, faculty, and guest artists the opportunity to work together across genres to create a cohesive piece. The individual pieces were composed of students from all majors, not just musical theater. This particular dance concert was the largest yet consisting of sixteen original choreographed pieces varying across dancing styles. Of these sixteen pieces they varied from ballet, ballroom, contemporary, West African, modern, musical theater, and tap. Thirteen of these performances were choreographed by students who auditioned their pieces and directed them independently. The other three were choreographed by three guest artists and CNU dance faculty.
As I mentioned before this show consisted of nine different dance styles that varied throughout the concert as a whole. The first performance was a style of dance you do not see every day and was an improvisation with CNU’s electronic music ensemble team. This performance was called, like the style, Improvisational Score with Electronic Music Ensemble choreographed by Ann Mazzocca Bellecci. A personal favorite of mine was the second performance of the night, Would That I, choreographed by Rebecca Lyoyd. Everything from the music to the choreography, to the costumes was perfectly done and executed. Another piece in the dance concert I want to mention was choreographed by the Captain’s Log’s very own Fiona Sullivan. Fiona choreographed, directed, and danced within her piece Salute, which was a performance that tapped along to the song “Salute” by Little Mix. Now in the second act, the performance that caught my eye was Blue Skies choreographed by CNU’s very own Laura Llod and featuring tap as well as some jazz. The reason this performance was so memorable was due to the fact the dancers were given umbrellas as props which added to the cohesiveness of the dance. The last performance I would like to point out also in the second act was Industrial choreographed by a CNU student, Caroline Morley. Industrial featured seven dancers, dancing to “Save My Soul” by Blues Saraceno.
Overall the 15th annual CNU dance concert offered many surprises and exciting moments allowing students and guest artists to choreograph and direct their very own pieces. After leaving the show, audience members can not wait to see what the amazing faculty and students do at next year’s dance concert.
