Every October, hundreds of middle- and high-school age dance students from all over Florida come to Santa Fe College’s Northwest Campus for two days of classes, rehearsals, performances and scholarship auditions in a festival atmosphere with dance professionals from throughout the United States. This year, the students will benefit from an artist residency with members of Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance.
Highlights of the dance festival are the public showcase performances at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Oct. 28-29, in the Fine Arts Hall at 3000 NW 83 Street, Gainesville. Tickets are $10, available through the Fine Arts Hall Box Office, 352-395-4181, or on line at:
The Young Dancer Workshop includes classes in ballet, modern, jazz, hip-hop, yoga, conditioning, and musical theatre. Students may meet and talk with representatives from Florida dance programs about their schools, scholarships and summer workshops. There will be a community dance jam and opportunities to audition for scholarships to the Florida Dance Festival 2017 and the Earl Mosley Summer Intensive 2017.
Founded by dancer/teacher/choreographer Frederick Earl Mosely, Diversity of Dance (DOD) and its associated program, Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts (EMIA), are focused on dance education. The organization holds an intensive program at The Marvelwood School in Kent, Connecticut, in the summer. Dance Teacher magazine named Mosley Teacher of the Year in 2005. He is currently on faculty at Montclair State University, The Ailey School, and the Joffrey Ballet School Jazz and Contemporary Summer Intensive.
For this year’s residency, Mosley (modern repertoire) will be accompanied by DOD dancers Samantha Barriento (jazz and hip-hop), Shay Bland (conditioning), Brian Harlan Brooks (hip-hop), Winston Dynamite Brown (ballet), Coral Dolphin (intermediate/advanced modern), Nathaniel Hunt (modern repertoire), and Jamal Story (jazz). The dancers-in-residence will give a talk at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, in the Building E Auditorium on the west side of campus. For more information about Mosley and Diversity of Dance, see: http://www.emiadance.org/director
The Santa Fe College Fine Arts Department, The Florida Dance Association (FDA) and the University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance organize and co-sponsor the Young Dancer Workshop in partnership. The FDA is an organization that helps dance artists to network, collaborate and support each other to advance dance arts throughout the state.
The Florida Dance Association is a NPN Partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible in part by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors of NPN include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information visit: www.npnweb.org