By Karen Gavis/se news editor
Dance companies from four TCC campuses will perform jazz, hip-hop, tap, contemporary, ballet, modern and lyrical dance to live music together for the first time Oct. 22 on SE Campus.
Special guests Dallas Black Theatre II, a professional modern dance company directed by Nycole Ray, will join the TCC dancers for Conversations in Rhythm at 7:30 p.m. in the C.A. Roberson Theatre.
SE dance director Jamie Perrin said each campus has strong dance companies, and they wanted a chance to work together. She said visitors will enjoy the experience because there will be so much variety.
“They always do some wonderful and innovative choreography,” SE music professor Greg Dewhirst said.
SE’s Rhapsody Dance Company, under the direction of Perrin, is the newest of the dance teams. The Mosaic Dance Company on NW Campus is directed by Lacreacia Sanders. Dr. Linda Quinn and Dr. Kihyoung Choi direct NE’s Movers Unlimited Dance Company, and Gypsy Ingram is the director of Velocity Dance Company on South Campus.
Quinn taught at NW for 10 years before moving to NE. She said the NE dance company began in spring 2009.
Quinn said her team is excited about getting to work together with the other campuses in concert, and she thinks the performance will inspire students.
“When we can all come together as a unified whole, I think it is just a good opportunity for students to learn and appreciate the arts,” she said.
NE will have 16 students performing three dances in the concert. They will perform a lyrical dance with a Spanish flavor, a fast-paced modern dance and a jazz tap dance to Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust.
Perrin said she thinks all the dance companies share the same level of commitment and are involved in their communities. They put on workshops for area high schools as well as programs for a children’s hospital.
“We all do outside performances,” she said.
Perrin said her students don’t dance just to earn a grade, and it is not something they take lightly.
“They form lifetime memories in a very short period of time,” she said. “They are doing it because they truly love dance.”
Perrin has 29 years of dancing experience. She worked on cruise ships, the Miss Texas pageant and a Super Bowl, she said.
When she first came to SE Campus five years ago, she said it had no dance company or concerts. Now, classes have more than doubled, and the campus has a dance company with four performances.
“It is really great to have that kind of growth going on,” Dewhirst said.
Admission to the concert is free for those with a TCC ID and $5 for the general public at the door on the night of performance. All proceeds will benefit Dancers Responding to AIDS.
