Student dancers shine in Sam Kenney's piece at festival

Dance Professor Sam Kenney

For the second time in three years, dancers from SUNY Fredonia’s Department of Theatre and Dance were given the honor of performing in the Gala Concert at the Northeast Regional American College Dance Festival.

This year’s conference, held March 2 through 5 at Penn State University, was a whirlwind extravaganza of classes, workshops, panels and performances that attracted nearly 500 students, teachers, choreographers and musicians from 25 colleges and universities from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The culmination of the four-day event was the Gala Concert, which featured the 12 strongest works selected from an initial pool of 42 dances as determined by the adjudicators, nationally recognized dance artists Pegge Vissicaro, Boris Willis and Claire Porter. The dance performed by SUNY Fredonia students was among those chosen.

The SUNY Fredonia students -- all Dance majors -- were: Stephanie Byron (sophomore), Christina Giannitsis (sophomore), Elizabeth Goretti (junior), Amanda Kellner (junior), Amanda Sahr (senior), Courtney Stewart (freshman), Abigail Sullivan (sophomore) and Sydney Thomas (sophomore).

They took the stage at Penn State’s Playhouse Theatre to Dance professor Sam Kenney’s work “Embodying,” set to music by Canadian industrial/ambient artists Delerium, costumed by Professor Dixon Reynolds, and lit by BFA Technical Production major Marcus Berdeguez.

Originally created for the University Dancers of University of Massachusetts/Amherst in 2006 and restaged for this year’s Fredonia Dance Ensemble concert, “Embodying” was hailed by the adjudicators as a “physically, emotionally and spiritually engaging” work with “rich movement vocabulary,” and a “strong sense of spatial and dynamic exploration.” The adjudicators also praised the performance of Fredonia’s dancers, noting their full-bodied and spatial dancing, technical skill, and commitment to the work.

This year’s Festival also marked the second time that Kenney’s choreography has been recognized by inclusion in an American College Dance Festival Gala. Her 2008 work, “90% Metaphor,” set to Buffalo native Ani DiFranco’s poem “Self-Evident,” costumed by Fredonia alumnus Christopher Thielking and lit by Theater professor Todd Proffitt, earned SUNY Fredonia its first Gala invitation at the Northeast Conference in 2010 at Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pa.

“To have work selected for an ACDF Gala is no small feat for any school at any time. It is certainly something that all of the participating universities hope for, but that very few achieve in any given year. To receive such an honor twice in such a short time frame is truly remarkable, and that this recognition comes at a relatively early stage in our development as a program makes it all the more meaningful,” Kenney said.

“I am immensely proud of the work that our dancers have done, and hope that all of our students will see their success as an inspiration, as proof of what we can accomplish here at SUNY Fredonia,” Kenney added.

“Embodying” will be presented as part of the 2012 Fredonia Dance Ensemble concert, alongside works by faculty choreographers Paul Mockovak, Helen Myers and Angelika Summerton and guest artists Tressa Crehan-Gorman, Jill Pribyl and Grace Flavia-Ibanda. The concert runs from Friday through Sunday, March 23 through 25, in Marvel Theatre. Tickets, which are $16, are available through the SUNY Fredonia Ticket Office.