This spring, the UL Lafayette Chamber Singers gave a modern premiere of the cantata "O Welt
UL Lafayette Dance Program Honored at Regional Dance Conference
Wed, 03/20/2019 - 9:58amUL Lafayette Dance Program Honored at Regional Dance Conference
From March 9-12, students from the UL Lafayette Dance Program attended the American College Dance Association’s Region of the South Conference held at the University of Mississippi in Oxford MS.
The University of Louisiana’s Dance Program has been an active member of the American College Dance Association (ACDA) for over twenty years and in 1989, hosted the association’s regional conference. The primary focus of the organization is to support and promote the wealth of talent and creativity that is prominent throughout college and university dance programs. ACDA has designated thirteen regions throughout the United States that hold annual conferences. The region of the South is comprised of college and university programs in the states of Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. ACDA conferences offer experiences in master classes, attending research presentations, attending concerts, and listening to adjudicators’ comments in an exchange with regional peer institutions.
ACDA regional conferences also provide the opportunity for students and faculty to have their dance works adjudicated by a panel of national recognized dance professionals. Many regional conferences include a GALA Concert as the culminating event of the conference. The Gala Concert is a fully produced concert comprised of dances chosen by the conference adjudicators from all dances submitted for adjudication. Each attending dance program may offer two dances for adjudication. UL Lafayette presented, EL día que se perdió el amour choreographed by Eric Rivera during a fall 2018 residency at UL Lafayette and She’s My Spiderweb choreographed by student choreographer Annie Higginbotham in the spring of 2018. Conference adjudicators selected both of these dances for inclusion in the Gala Concert. No other institution represented at the conference had both of their offering selected for the Gala Concert. In comments from the adjudicators reflecting on the UL Lafayette performances, mention was made of the strong technical foundation that the dancers displayed and how well balanced the technical approach to their dancing was with a strong well-understood performance quality. Both of these qualities are hallmarks of the training in the UL Lafayette Dance Program.