Students dance their hearts out at the Fall Dance Showcase
A file photo from a 2016 Dance Ensemble performance (Photo courtesy of Gettysburg College)
By Jackie McMahon, Staff Writer
On Friday, November 10 and Saturday, November 11, Gettysburg College’s Dance Ensemble presented their annual fall dance showcase. A student run club led by current club president Briana Costira and vice president Katey Wilson, Dance Ensemble performs a showcase at the end of every semester to show off their student choreographed dances, with the help of advisor Shannon Egan. Dance Ensemble was also joined by B.O.M.B. Squad, Gettysburg College’s alternative dance troupe, and Zouave, an audition only contemporary dance organization at Gettysburg, for their performance.
The showcase, entitled “All That Jazz”, started off with Dance Ensemble performing a cabaret style number set to the song of the same name from the musical Chicago. The show continued with a variety of dances performed by Dance Ensemble, B.O.M.B. Squad and Zouave in many different forms of dance, including tap, contemporary, and interpretative, among others. Dances included both group numbers and featured solo performances, all set to contemporary music tracks like Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill” or Imagine Dragons’s “Believer”. Some of the impressive dance moves included lifts, jumps and body contortions, with one dancer even being thrown through the air and then caught by the other dancers.
Admission to the event, held in the CUB Ballroom, was free, but the event also collected voluntary donations to support the American Dance Therapy Organization, a non-profit based in Columbia, Maryland. Founded in 1966, ADTA advocates both in the U.S. and around the world for the expansion and development of dance movement therapy, the therapeutic use of movement to further the body, mind and spirit.
