By Jade Myers/campus editor
Music plays in a room with mirror-covered walls as people jump into synchronized dance movements, flowing with the song.
These are alumni and current students of the NW dance program rehearsing for their big night.
The NW dance program is celebrating 20 years with their “Going Platinum!” show 7:30 p.m. March 30 at the W.E. Scott Theatre in Fort Worth.
“We have been rehearsing since January 15 with over 75 performers and half are TCC alumni,” said NW dance instructor Amy Jennings, who is directing the show.
They are restaging works by past and present faculty such as humanities dean Linda Quinn, who founded TCC’s dance program, as well as one work by deceased Laurie Sanda that will be performed in her honor, Jennings said.
They are also restaging a piece by NW student Kelly Ratanabouahpha whose work is selected to represent NW Campus at the American College Dance Association Conference this year, Jennings said.
“The other thing that is really exciting for me is that it is on art gallery night,” Jennings said. “That’s when the galleries are all open. They’re all free.”
In addition to the dances, NW student Brittany Padilla will be playing live instruments.
“For this show, I’m dancing in a couple pieces, but I’m playing guitar for one piece,” she said. “I am playing piano, a classical piece by Beethoven, ‘Fur Elise,’ for a solo.”
NW student Alyssa Ellis is newer to the NW dance company, and this is her first time dancing with alumni.
“Teachers here are amazing,” she said. “It feels like a family. I don’t even know them that well, but they all are very kind [and] very sweet.”
Many alumni from the NW dance program have returned to participate.
“Just the culture that they created here with the dance group, it’s just one you don’t want to forget about,” NW alumna Glori Weiner said. “It’s one you want to keep coming back to.”
Weiner went to NW from 2004 to 2008.
She lives locally and always comes back for the reunions to dance.
“This is an alumni concert and I am an alumni from way back,” said Kiera Amison, NW alumna and current South dance instructor. “It’s nice to be back and to be a part of this alumni concert with other people who have a long history with TCC dance.”
Amison is performing in one piece but is also helping out to direct rehearsals.
“These are not students who I often see because this isn’t my home campus, but I still feel really comfortable and at home here ‘cause we are one college, and we are one big family,” Amison said.
