Student choreographer Renee Guittar’s dance “Temporary” was selected for performance at the Regional Gala Concert of the American College Dance Festival Tuesday, March 22, 2011. Guittar’s work was one of only 9 dances out of 37 entries selected for the finale of the conference titled “Dancing Beyond the Discipline.”
This year’s American College Dance Festival featured 25 college and university dance programs from around the North Central Region. It welcomed three internationally-renowned dance professionals to adjudicate the 37 pieces in three different concerts.
Following the performances, critical feedback was received from the adjudicators regarding dance pieces “2×2” by Gustavus Theatre and Dance Department’s Melissa Rolnick and “Temporary” by Renee Guittar ’12 and special mention was given regarding the “conviction and clarity” of the performance by Katherine Arndt ’13, Taylor Cook ’11, Emily Hassenstab ’13, and Alyssa McGinty ’12.
Gustavus junior Renee Guittar’s solo work “Temporary” was selected to be among the elite group of dances to be presented at the finale concert. In remarks regarding their selection, the adjudicators made particular note of the sophistication of Guittar’s choreography and went on to praise how her presence on stage transcended formality, dancing with “spot-on clarity,” sensitivity, nuance, and maturity. One adjudicator called the Gustavus junior “especially gifted.”
Guittar’s performance in the 2011 American College Dance Festival Gala was the third time in four years that a submission from the Gustavus Department of Theatre and Dance has been selected for the finale concert. It was the first time the distinction has gone to a student choreographer. In 2008, Gustavus Visiting Instructor in Dance Cynthia Gutierrez-Garner’s work Vigorous Incubation was selected for performance at the ACDFA gala at both the regional and national conferences, with the national gala performed in New York City. In 2009, “Shiny Things for the Mind,” choreographed by Gutierrez-Garner and danced by nine Gustavus students, earned the finale spot in the Gala performance held at the University of Minnesota.
The Department of Theatre and Dance contingent at this year’s conference included 14 student dancers, four student theatre techncians, faculty members Melissa Rolnick, Jeffrey Peterson, Ashleigh Penrod, and Terena Wilkens, and accompanist John Mayer. In addition to the works by Rolnick and Guittar, the department presented choreography by Alyssa McGinty ’12 and Taylor Cook ’11.
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