ACDFA Review

I just got back from Salt Lake City where I participated in the American College Dance Festival Association Northwest Conference.  This is where several universities and colleges gather together annually in the Northwest Region of the U.S. and celebrate dance.  Each school brings a few pieces to show and be adjudicated.  From these pieces a few are chosen to represent the Northwest Conference at the National Festival.  This was my first time going to ACDFA and I have to say that is was amazing.  I was able to take classes from professors of other schools and I also got to see work done by the other schools.  I have to be honest that at first I was not a fan of the work of other schools but after I spent some time thinking on their work and opening my some-what closed mind at the time I found their work to be beautiful.  I especially liked the work done by the University of Montana, Utah Valley University, Colorado College, University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of Utah. Okay so I know I'm a mormon and a lot of the others who went with me would probably disagree with me and say the pieces were nothing but political statements and were only good for shock value. But there was so much more to the pieces than that. Their works were deep and rich in meaning and if one was only able to look past the superficiality of them they could get a wonderful meaning of what the choreographer was trying to communicate. I guess I'm just a little more liberal than some. Anyway, I feel I've learned a lot about myself and how I work as a choreographer and artist.  I received a lot of inspiration this week and I have some interesting ideas I'd like to work on in the near future.  Thanks to the God of heaven for DANCE!