Adelphi Dance Students Perform With Original Choreography

Adelphi University’s Olmsted Theatre in the Performing Arts Center (AU PAC) was the stage for student choreography and dancing recently with its Dance Workshop.

Sixteen numbers were choreographed by the Adelphi Dance Department and featured several dance styles. 

It’s one thing to dance a number that was created by someone else, but another thing entirely when the students have to do their own choreography and then dance to it themselves.

Such was the case with the impressive “Someday You Will Need Me,” choreographed and performed by Andy Jacobs to the music of “Stay” by Miley Cyrus. He knows his athletic strength and it was expressed well in the piece.

“I was inspired by my past old self at a young age,” Jacobs said.

Some students choreographed pieces with classmates dancing to it, as in Krissy Harris’ case.

“With choreography, you learn what’s possible. You put a piece of yourself in it and it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” said Harris. She choreographed “I Felt a Grace Fall Upon Me” with eight dancers.

There’s a lot of work involved being a dance student at Adelphi. Not only do the students have to create the choreography, but they need to make decisions on costumes, lighting and selecting dancers among their classmates in the department.

Adelheid Strelick, Dance Department adjunct professor of the Dance Theory and Composition II class, remarked, “Some students submitted a performance. They are required to have a final composition. Six used it for a final performance …There is a great community [here] with the dancers.”

“For Battered Women” choreographed by Raven Jelks, Shana Goldberger and Alyssa Wiedman were theatrical in their dance roles.

“Paquita” was the only traditional ballet performed on pointe and it was energetically and gracefully danced by six women. Adelphi Dance Department chair Frank Augustyn choreographed it after Joseph Mazilier and Marius Petipa. 

Friends Frances Pontilillo and Loretta Sohn from Garden City enjoyed the show. Pontilillo commented, “They put their hearts and souls in it.”

After the performance, Adelphi student Michelle Baxley said, “It was a lot of fun to do the group work and solos. Getting coached by Frank [Augustyn] is exciting.  He prepares us for the professional world.” She danced very nicely in “Paquita.”

Orion Duckstein, visiting assistant professor of dance, stated, “My kids did so well! It’s nice to watch as a teacher as the students have grown up during the year.”

Starting at an early age, students from the Alice Brown Early Learning Center were seen in the audience, absorbed in the dancing, music and lights.

For more information about dance and the schedule of events at Adelphi University, visit www.Adelphi.edu.