The seats of Room 35 of the VA Memorial Theatre were filled this past weekend with students, faculty and community members who came out to witness the third annual Spring Dance Concert at ETSU. The VA Memorial Theatre proved to be a fitting place for the concert this year. Molly Baker-Crofts, an ETSU dance teacher, said, “It’s a beautiful theater … [we were] lucky to have such a gem that is still functioning, housing performances – and right here on the beautiful VA premises.”

ETSU’s spring dance concerts always offer an eclectic mixture of dance and music styles. The dance program’s third annual concert brought even more diversity and intrigue to the mix – with three distinct dance troupes and the addition of an aerial silk as well as trapeze routine and three disparate suites of music by three composers and four choreographers.

What brought this vast array together? Collaboration was the key.

ETSU’s dance program, which recently became a part of the Communication Department’s Theatre Division, collaborated with a regional dance company and a professional dance troupe from Virginia this spring. In addition, rather than a concoction of different pieces by different composers, this program featured three composers and dances organized in suites by composer.

The composers were as varied as the dance styles and dancers – with the first suite featuring Johann Sebastian Bach’s music sung by The Swingle Singers, using “ba’s” and “da’s” as oppose to words. To balance the classicism of Bach, the second suite’s music was dramatically modern, composed by Salvador Barajas and choreographed by Danah Bella of Radford University’s dance program. The final suite featured more tonal contemporary music composed by Dr. Joseph Borden, music and theatre arts instructor at University School on the ETSU campus.

The communion between the dancers and audience was strong as the audience laughed, awed and an gave uproarious applause.

These diverse dances, music and performers all came together and the hard work of the choreographers and dancers was apparent from their enthusiasm for the music, the meaning and the craft in a way that almost everyone can comprehend and relate to.

Even for those who are not as familiar with the dances and techniques, audience members of the dance concert were still entertained.

Sophomore Joseph Grieves said, “I’ve never really seen [this type of dance] in real life. For me, it’s a great experience, but it’s a bit hard to interpret since I’ve never been into it a lot, but it is interesting.”

Note: Scene Editor Alaina Akens contributed to this story.

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