Each semester, CC dancers and choreographers take center stage in Dance Workshop – a high-energy, high-quality, and creative student-produced performance. Over three packed shows, Dance Workshop proves it is a semester highlight for CC to build community and celebrate dance. Last block's production, Villain Era, featured over twenty student choreographers and over a hundred dancers.
What amounts to a two-hour show featuring 21 dances and a finale is a months-long creative process for dancers and choreographers. Dore Young ’23, the CC student body president and Dance Workshop choreographer, says she gets her inspiration for her freestyle hyper-pop dance from trial and error. “My dance this semester is about the creative process. It's about going to Armstrong Hall, putting your headphones in, trying things out, and seeing what sticks,” she says. “I just put music on and let myself go.”
Alanna Jackson ’23 choreographed a tap/jazz-contemporary piece with her younger sister Nadia Jackson ’26. She says, “When we were figuring out what to choreograph, we'd go to the studio, listen to a part, free dance, and then look at each other and say, ‘Oh, I like that,’ or ‘Oh, I don't like that,’ and then mesh it together.”
Dance Workshop encourages dancers throughout the CC student community to come together during the block plan. "It creates community by including people who occupy different spaces on campus," says student choreographer Imani Allen ’23. “Like the people in my piece. There are education majors, environmental science majors, and me, a romance language major. Through Dance Workshop, we can find a shared space.”
Young says the Block Plan benefits Dance Workshop. "We know how to throw something together really fast,” she says. “It's unique that we can do a full show every semester.” CC's schedule also helps with planning rehearsals. “Since we all have class during the morning, our afternoons are flexible to rehearse.”
Villain Era was a success. “The variety of pieces we had this semester was exciting,” says Allen. “We had someone do a Video Dance, Irish step-dancing, Bollywood-influence, Reggaeton.” The diversity of movement ensures that everyone who auditions can participate, and the production includes all experience levels.