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by LAURA TABOR
Lifestyles Reporter
When Anna M. Maynard arrived at Appalachian State University, she did not imagine she would be choreographing an original dance for a major dance festival her first semester.
“I was just auditioning to perform in a piece,” Maynard, a freshman studio art major, said. “I was thinking of a combination and thought that I might as well give it a shot.”
Maynard was chosen as a student choreographer for one of four local dances in the North Carolina Dance Festival.
The festival is an annual tour of dance artists from all over the state.
All performances take place Oct. 24 through Oct. 26 in Valborg Theater at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $6 for students and $10 for non-students and can be purchased at the Valborg Box Office.
“All of
the artists are living and working in North Carolina,” Susan W. Lutz,
associate professor of dance and local coordinator of the festival,
said. “This is an opportunity to see choreography that students might
not get a chance to see otherwise.”
This
year there is a five-school tour, starting at University of North
Carolina at Greensboro before coming to Appalachian and then circling
back through
Meredith
College, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and University of
North Carolina at Wilmington, according to the Web site.
The main
touring acts are the same at every school, but local groups from each
university also perform, making each performance different.
The
Appalachian Dance Ensemble will perform the same dances accompanied by
two or three of the eight touring artists each night while the festival
is at Appalachian.
Most of
the acts are danced in contemporary styles and were created especially
for this showcase, as is the case with Maynard’s original piece.
“The
rewarding part is yet to come – seeing the dance performed before an
audience,” Maynard said. “Seeing it in costumes and under lights will
be great.”
The
performances are an opportunity for dance students at Appalachian to
network with professional dancers from around the state.
“Students
get to meet and dance alongside dancers from around the state,” Lutz
said. “Usually, one of the companies will have someone who was once a
student at Appalachian.”
“Regardless
of what kind of dance you prefer, there will be something for you,”
Lutz said. “The show is terrifically diverse and different every night.”
The performance is not restricted to the Department of Theater and Dance; all students and community members are welcome.
“Arts
are a way that people can connect with each other on an emotional and
physical level,” Lutz said. “Creativity, through dance, music, or art,
gives people a different outlook than the open-a-book-and-study
atmosphere of college.”
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