Junior Senior Showcase
Friendship, politics, observing a deer in the wild. These may sound like basic words or phrases to the average person, but for juniors and seniors in Dance Theater at RWU, these were some of the themes they built an entire dance piece around.
This past weekend at the Performing Arts Center, the Dance Program held their annual Junior Senior Showcase. The event is where junior and senior dance majors and minors are able to perform their self-choreographed pieces. The students who performed were able to pick any theme and pair it with a style of dance they chose.
The show was directed by senior dance major Samantha Rose Verity, who performed a lovely duo with Meryl Gendreau entitled “Free” with music choices from “Redbone” by Childish Gambino, “Permission” by Ro James, “High” by Young Thug ft. Elton John and “Free” by 6lack. Verity and Gendreau, along with many other talented dancers, held two shows on March 22 and 23 where they showed the campus community, family members and friends their unique pieces and the way they love to express themselves the most — dance.
“I made my senior solo about having found a home here over the last four years, and having found that home here at RWU, and having to get ready to now leave this home for the next big part of my life and the adjustment that it will take,” senior Leeza Regulbuto said. “My solo expressed a visual product of the internal process that I have been going through in coming to terms with having to move on from my home here.”
For the seniors dancing, it was their last time they will be performing a solo here at RWU.
“It was way more bitter sweet than I was expecting. Each night it felt more and more real and exciting, but leaving the stage after the last show for the last time in this way with my friends really choked me up and I was not expecting it,” Regulbuto said.
Not only was the show student-run, but the teachers sat back as all the dancers choreographed on their own, worked out the lighting and music and configured all the other details that go into show night.
“It was nice to just be able to showcase what we like to do without it feeling like we needed to make the product for a final grade. It was nice to be able to just do what we wanted to do without consequence, and I think that invited a lot of variety into the show that we had not had before,” Regulbuto said.
For those interested in watching some of the seniors perform again for their last time as an RWU undergraduate, all are welcome to come to their Dance Theatre “In Concert” shows May 2-5.
