The department of dance at Hope College is hosting the last of its Fall Student Dance Showcase concerts on Monday-Tuesday, Nov. 25-26, at 8 p.m. at the KnickerbockerTheatre.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The bi-annual showcase of student choreography is designed to highlight the creativity, ingenuity and vibrancy of the student dance artists at Hope.
The program for each of the concert venues will be different, with the pieces matched to the setting that best suits them. Works selected for the Dow “white box” space will have the benefit of a more open, intimate and personal environment with a white floor and backdrop, while the pieces for the Knickerbocker will have the benefit of a traditional “black box” theater with additional technical capacities.
For the first time, the program will include a preview of the Ballet Club’s “Nutcracker” suite. A few selections of the popular annual tradition will give audiences a sneak peek of the later full-length version, which will be presented on Friday-Saturday, Dec. 6-7, at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Tickets for the Dec. 6-7 “Nutcracker” concerts are sold out.
Every year, the students who contribute to the Student Dance Showcase participate in a mentoring and adjudication process. Faculty producers Steven Iannacone and Matthew Farmer meet with each student choreographer several times to give feedback through the student’s creative process. The final aspect of the presenting process consists of the department of dance inviting a professional choreographer to Hope’s Campus to adjudicate the students works, teach several master classes, as well as hold auditions for his/her dance company.
This year’s guest adjudicator is William Crowley, a 1992 Hope graduate who is founder and co-artistic director of Next Step Dance, a modern dance company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Crowley, who holds his MFA in dance from the University of Michigan, has danced with Aerial Dance Theater, Ann Arbor Dance Works, Dansplateau (Belgium), David Taylor Dance Theatre, and Dance Gallery/Peter Sparling & Co., in which he performed the lead role in Martha Graham’s masterwork, “El Penitente.” “Dance Magazine” wrote, “That… Crowley seems to share [his] magic with us makes this universe ultimately reassuring.”
The Dow Center is located at 168 E. 13th St., on the corner of 13th Street and Columbia Avenue. The Knickerbocker Theatre is located in downtown Holland at 86 E. Eighth St., between College and Columbia avenues.