Dancers grace stage at Dance Ensemble Spring Showcase
Dance Ensemble’s Spring Showcase featured contemporary dance, hip hop and swing. Photo courtesy of Jamie Welch.
By Kira Goodwin, Staff Writer
On the afternoon of Sunday, April 10 members of the Gettysburg community made their way down to the CUB Ballroom to see the second day performances of Gettysburg College Dance Ensemble’s annual Spring Showcase. Although admission was free, the dance groups were soliciting for donations to benefit the American Dance Therapy Association, a cause very dear to their hearts.
Opening the program was an upbeat dance to “Shut up and Dance” performed by the ensemble’s executive board that was meant to get the audience psyched for what was to come, and it clearly worked. After them, the dance group Zouave got up to perform, and their performance was quite impressive, as was their capacity to stay in sync with one another.
Throughout the night, the ensemble tried to incorporate numbers from all sorts of dance styles, throwing in genres such as salsa and swing with the typical ballet, tap and contemporary. On top of that, the numbers were choreographed by students performing in them, a feat making the fluency of the performances even more impressive.
They were careful in their ordering of the program as well, making sure to rotate between upbeat and slower numbers so as to keep the energy in the audience high and make sure everyone was having fun. The cheers from the audience made it clear that this was working, but it was also clear that the dancers were having a good time too.
When they came to an intermission all the dancers went into the audience to find and talk to their friends, making it clear that this was a casual performance. However, this unintentionally connected the audience more to their work, reminding audience members that they are real people, and anything could go wrong when they are up on that stage. Thankfully for them, though, nothing did (at least nothing noticeable to audience members).
Before going into the second half the choreographers for the night and the members of the executive board got up to introduce themselves and share their contributions to the night’s performances, again reminding the audience that they are just normal people, having fun doing something they love.
Overall, the night saw a lot of impressive numbers, coming from solo performances, large groups, small groups, the ever popular BOMB Squad and many others. It was a fun event where audience members got the opportunity to see the superstar potential of their fellow classmates.
