How many students are pursuing a minor or certification in dance?
Officially there are 16 students in the minor and four in the dance certification. Often there are more who just haven’t officially declared the minor.

How many students are involved in Dance Theatre?
This semester we have around 65 students in Dance Theatre. Each choreographer chooses their own dancers so the number in dance theatre depends on how many pieces we have and how many dancers they each want for their piece.

What can the audience expect to see at the Dance Theatre event this Fall?
We have great variety as always! Our guest artist, Sarah Downs, has created a crazy piece about cell phones that everyone will be able to relate to. I am doing a dance that grew out of a presentation for the National Honors Conference about how a people’s dance speaks to the nature of their culture. We have combined Japanese Folk Dance, Classical Indian, Middle Eastern and African and then abstracted the phrases using Modern dance. We call the piece Culture Shock for good reason! The ballroom group has also taken a more cultural route doing a Polka and Schottische which we have never done before. People will think they have been transported to an Oktoberfest! Beth Slone has created a beautiful dance that will be a real tear jerker about “moving on to the next world” using Sarah McLaughlin’s song "Angel." Kindra Fulks' piece is as colorful as always and will speak to your inner child. The themes of our other modern pieces include; fire, vampires, the consequences of our actions, life lessons, questions about religion, identity struggles and relationships. Ending the concert we have an amazing “Stomp”-like clogging piece choreographed by Eric Highfield and Jessica Hart that involves a few of EKU Percussion Ensemble members. It will finish the concert with a bang!

What goes into student preparation for the event?
We begin the second or third week into each semester with a choreographer audition. From this event we choose the pieces that will be in the concert that semester. The next day we have dancer auditions and then each choreographer rehearses their own pieces at least once a week for the entire semester. (We had 108 students audition this year taking five hours to do the audition and make decisions on who would be in what piece. We were here until 2 a.m. - so from now on we are doing auditions on a Saturday afternoon. I guess we are suffering from growing pains!)

Most rehearsals happen after 9 p.m. or on Sunday so we don’t interfere with classes. Yesterday we showed each other the progress we have made. We send the video from the showing to our lighting designer to begin designing the lights for each piece and we begin contemplating the order of the concert. This is also the time we move full steam ahead with publicity, putting up posters, getting announcements to radio stations, placing our large signs on the bypass and sending out postcards.

At concert time we are in the theatre for eight days setting up the floor, cyclorama and lighting and then running technical rehearsals with our lighting designer and director Tanya Harper. During concert week we also usually do two performances for school children during one of the school days. The concert runs four days with seven shows counting the lecture dems. Following the concert on Saturday night we strike everything sending all the rented equipment back to Cincinnati and party till the early hours. In January we start all over again!

What impact have dance-related TV programs had on interest in dance among students and the community?
The best part to me is that shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” have shown the world the power of Modern Dance. Modern is finding the movement to say what you want to say and until now has not been seen unless you went to the concert hall. One of the most famous modern dance companies, Alvin Ailey, has even appeared on “Dancing with the Stars”! I think more and more people are inspired to try dancing themselves and are more likely to attend dance events because of this exposure.

Is there anything that the TV shows fail to reflect, or portray inaccurately, about dance?
I don’t think people really understand how many hours a day these contestants are putting into their dancing. You would never usually see people improve as quickly as they do, since most of us don’t have the time to train so intensely and with such professional and highly talented teachers and choreographers.