Conference graphic courtesy of the American College Dance Association (ACDA)
How I Got Here
As my final semester at the University of Rochester was winding down, I was thrilled to hear that two of the pieces I performed in for the Dance Department’s fall show, Confluence, had been selected to perform again at the American College Dance Association’s Northeast Regional Conference in March. I knew that I would be graduating in December, and moving across the country to start a software internship at Midi Health in Palo Alto, but there was no way I was missing this. Fortunately, I was able to take some time off work, fly back to Rochester for a few refresher rehearsals, and drive down to conference with the rest of the team at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Overall, the conference was an incredible experience. First, I got to perform in two of pieces that the University of Rochester brought: ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop, choreographed by guest artist Alexandra Beller, and On the Value of a Soul, choreographed by Stella Lempert. In addition to our own performances, being able to watch all of the other dances from institutions in the Northeast region was absolutely awe-inspiring — two pieces in particular stopped me cold were Stop “RED” Before it Stops You, choreographed by Assistant Professor Adjetey Klufio in collaboration with the dancers from Goucher College, and Are You Still H…, choreographed by undergraduate student Gabby Schafer from Seton Hill University. Finally, in between the performances, I participated in a variety of vibrant and eclectic dance classes, which was a fantastic way to end off this chapter of my undergraduate dance saga.
ain't no power like the power of the people, cause the power of the people don't stop.
Choreographed by Alexandra Beller, in collaboration with the dancers
In the fall, the UR Dance Department brought in guest choreographer Alexandra Beller to set a piece on the DANC397 “Dance Ensemble” class during a week-long five-hour-per-day intensive. If you don’t know Alexandra — she danced with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and went on to found her own company, Alexandra Beller/Dances, focused on somatic movement and embodiment.
What made the piece so special was how deeply collaborative the process was. Alexandra had enough of a vision to keep us productive, but left enough room for our own contributions, that the piece genuinely felt like it belonged to all of us equally. She had an extraordinary ability to read the room — picking up on the social dynamics of our group almost immediately and using them to shape the work.
The piece itself was a high-energy political work rooted in the feeling of living through a world of protest, unrest, and heated political division. One of my favorite details was that we each got to design our own distressed military uniform costume. Many of us decorated them with words and symbols representing political causes we personally cared about, each telling our own story, and telling a bigger story together as a whole. The piece was full of chanting and fighting, and the title chant — ain’t no power like the power of the people, cause the power of the people don’t stop — stuck so hard that people were reciting it back to us in the dressing room hallways the next day.
Performing it one more time at ACDA felt like the perfect final note on my college dance career. ACDA filmed the performance, so I will definitely be adding it to my portfolio once I receive the video.
On the Value of a Soul
Choreographed by Stella Lempert
The other piece I performed in was choreographed by my classmate Stella, and it was a completely different experience — more intimate, more internal. Stella’s piece, On the Value of a Soul, was a powerful, fast-paced contemporary work narrating the tragic story of a brilliant child prodigy who ultimately succumbs to suicide. It was an emotionally heavy piece to be in, and Stella handled the subject matter with real care and artistry. Performing it at ACDA, in front of an audience that hadn’t seen it before, felt like giving the piece the moment it deserved.
Adjudication Concert Highlights
If I’m being honest, watching the adjudication concerts was just as meaningful to me as performing. The level of artistry on display was genuinely stunning, and I left each concert feeling that specific kind of inspired-and-humbled that only great art can produce. Two pieces in particular stopped me cold.
Stop "RED" Before it Stops You
Goucher College — Choreographed by Adjetey Klufio and Dancers
I have to start with a fact that made this piece even more special in retrospect: I had no idea when I first watched it that the choreographer, Adjetey Klufio, was the same person who taught one of my favorite classes of the conference: Afrobeats (Azonto). I’m incredibly honored that I decided to get a photo with him after class because his class was an absolute blast, and his choreography was on another level. He was unmistakably one of the starts of the conference, and reading his program note — where he describes his students as “active research partners” instead of just performers — I can only imagine how special that rehearsal process must have been for his cast.
The piece was about the AIDS epidemic, though I didn’t fully register that the first time I watched it. What I registered was the music — the transitions between tracks were so seamless and so perfectly calibrated to the movement that it felt like one continuous wave of energy.
The dancers were exceptional movers: they could do hip hop, execute big sweeping shapes, and sustain the energy of a full cypher without losing an ounce of presence. The roll-offs were immaculately timed. The costumes were bright red, which gave every formation an extra visual punch.
When I watched it a second time at the encore concert, I let my eyes go slightly unfocused — just a trick I sometimes use to watch shape and pattern instead of individual bodies — and that’s when I saw it. The way the AIDS epidemic spreads isn’t one dramatic catastrophic moment. It’s a slow, quiet, creeping demise, bodies falling out of formations one at a time while the rest keep moving, keep dancing, almost unaware. It was a genuinely shocking realization, and I think that’s exactly what Adjetey intended.
Are You Still H...
Seton Hill University — Choreographed by Gabby Schafer (Undergraduate Student)
This piece broke the room.
I don’t say that lightly. The crowd went absolutely berserk — and not in a polite, appreciative-applause way, but in a holy-shit-what-did-we-just-watch way. The fact that Gabby Schafer is an undergraduate student is almost impossible to process after watching this piece. She clearly has life experiences that run very deep.
The premise: a main character (Gabby herself) navigating a world populated by demons — dark, crawling, sinister figures moving through a pitch-black stage. On the first viewing, I read it as a haunting: demons that only she could see, pulling her between terror and compulsion. But the second time I watched it, my reading shifted entirely. I started to see the demons as real people — her actual friends — and the whole piece became something much more terrifying: a bad trip, a depressive episode, the specific horror of being in an altered or broken mental state while everyone around you seems to be completely fine.
There’s a moment where everyone forms a circle and laughs together. Gabby’s character feels compelled to join in. And then the joke ends, and she’s left standing there: wait, what’s happening, why am I the only one who’s scared? I loved how dancers didn’t laugh out loud — they bounced their shoulders, physically embodying the laugh through movement as opposed to through sound design or gimmicks, which would have been distracting. Overall, the clear depiction of laughter without disrupting the story showed Gabby’s astute choreographic genius.
The moment that hit me hardest was when Gabby’s character tapped one of the demons on the shoulder, demanding a hug. The demon obliged immediately. And then so did all the others — this wave of demons descending into a group embrace. I read it as: when you’re truly suffering and you single someone out to say I need you right now, they will likely show up for you in that moment. But then the piece kept going, and the demons went back to being demons, because at the end of the day, they have their own lives. They don’t stay. That’s the quiet devastation of it.
Gabby Schafer, if you ever somehow read this: you are an extraordinary artist and I hope someone is telling you that loudly and often.
Master Classes
Alongside the performances, ACDA was packed with master classes taught by faculty and artists from across the Northeast region. Some of them were genuinely eye-opening — a chance to experience unique styles with the full cultural context and intentionality that the forms deserve.
Others were just pure joy. The clip to the left is from the Open Commercial Hip-Hop class taught by Madeline E. Dembowski, set to “Nokia” by Drake — I’ll let it speak for itself. Shoutout to Mel for getting such an iconic video.
Taking these classes alongside my UR classmates, and alongside new friends I made throughout the conference, made the whole experience feel like one continuous celebration of why we all showed up in the first place. Here’s what I took:
- Brazilian Fusion & Capoeira with Jaruam Xavier
- Afrobeats (Azonto) with Adjetey Klufio
- House Party with Parisha Rajbhandari
- Physical Listening – Contact Improv & Argentine Tango with Heather Roffe
- The Essence of Umfundalai (Contemporary African) with Shaness D. Kemp
- Open Commercial Hip-Hop with Madeline E. Dembowski
- Grounded Rhythm (Yoruba) with Charity John
Conclusion
Overall, the conference was an absolute blast. Honestly, I could tell that it was more-so designed for undergraduate dance majors than for alumni dance enthusiasts, but funnily enough, I think it just goes to show how good I would be at navigating polyamorous relationships should I choose to pursue that path. Even though I didn’t belong in the group, I was still able to feel excited in the moments that I could, and feel compersion for the people I cared about when I watched them experience joy. Being able to witness highly dedicated dancers create beautiful artistry with their every move was nothing short of a privilege.
I want to give a huge thank you to ACDA and the team of student volunteers at Seton Hill University who kept everything running smoothly. Thank you as well to the faculty who taught such incredible classes, the adjudicators for their thoughtful feedback, and the UR Dance Department who helped make this trip possible in the first place.
On the final day of the conference, the encore performance was the official end of it all. We performed Alexandra’s piece one last time, packed our things, and began the long journey home, back to our regular lives. Somewhere on that trip, I started to feel the weight of what had just ended — not just ACDA, but the whole era. I started dancing at UR freshman year, performing in the first-year piece of the Dance Department’s fall show. I ended it chanting ain’t no power like the power of the people, cause the power of the people don’t stop in a theater in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, surrounded by passionate dancers from across the region, and full of excitement.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
