The Department of Dance at Hope College is hosting its Spring Student Dance Showcase on Friday and Saturday, April 22-23, at 7:30 p.m. in the Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland, and on Monday and Tuesday, April 25-26, at 7:30 p.m. in the Dow Center dance studio.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The bi-annual showcase of student choreography features two venues to provide distinctive experiences for the participants and audiences alike. Pieces for the Knickerbocker will have the benefit of a traditional “black box” theater with additional technical capacities. The intimate White Box studio on the second floor of the Dow Center offers the audience the opportunity to experience the energy of dance in a close and personal manner.
Both concerts are student choreographed, student performed and student run. Every year, the student choreographers who contribute works participate in a mentoring and adjudication process. Faculty co-producers Steven Iannacone and Nicole Flinn 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 adjudicate the students’ works and teach several master classes. This year’s adjudicator is Ray Tadio, who is a former member of the Hope dance faculty and is now an assistant professor of dance at San Francisco State University where he co-directs University Dance Theater.
Tadio has choreographed for the Ailey 2 Company; Reflections Dance Co. of Washington, D.C.; Pori Dance Co. of Finland; Benetton Corp. (New York); National Ballet Academy of the Netherlands; Jazz Theater Show Musical/Theater School Amsterdam; dANCEpROjECT; Movements Dance Co. of Jamaica; and studio companies in Japan and Europe.
Tadio resided in The Netherlands for four years, teaching and choreographing at the theater schools in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He taught workshops for Djazzex Co. (Den Hague), Rotterdamse Dansgroep, and studios in Belgium, Germany, Italy and France. In 1998, he moved back to the United States and subsequently obtained his art degree at San Jose State University. He taught at UC Davis before serving, from 2004 to 2008, as assistant professor of dance at Hope College, where he had also been a visiting faculty member.
He specializes in the Lester Horton modern dance technique as well as modern jazz. He was awarded the Le Huit d'Or in France in 1995 for excellence in jazz and contemporary dance. He holds a MFA in dance performance and choreography from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
The Dow Center is located at 168 E. 13th St., on the corner of 13th Street and Columbia Avenue. The Knickerbocker Theater is located at 86 E. Eighth St.