Fall Dance Festival to showcase local talents

Janelle Silverman - Entertainment Beat

The 11th annual performance of The North Carolina Fall Dance Festival will begin tonight at 8 p.m. and run until Saturday in Valborg Theatre.

The event will include dancers from the Appalachian State University department of theatre and dance and will also feature eight dance companies from across the state.

There will be a different performance each night, with two companies dancing this evening and three companies Friday and Saturday nights. Each performance will run approximately 90 minutes.

X Factor, a Boone-based dance company headed by dancer and choreographer Valerie Midgett, will present two works tonight, according to a recent press release.

Second performer Eluza Santos, a Brazilian and faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will give a solo performance that interprets the roles women play in her native country.

The festival will continue with a performance by the Alban Elved Dance Company of Winston-Salem, combining dance, theater, mountain climbing and other varieties of entertainment into its show.

Carol Finley, faculty member at Meredith College, and Sean Sullivan, faculty member of the North Carolina School of the Arts Contemporary Dance Program, will also display their own choreography and dance.

The festival will end Saturday with the Urban Dance Theatre of Durham, influenced by modern and West African dance, and directed by Wesley Williams. The Jan Van Dyke Dance Group of Greensboro and the Apple Chill Cloggers of Carrboro also will perform with their own live bands, according to the press release.

Local pieces choreographed by Appalachian State faculty members and students also will be presented each night of the festival.

Theatre and dance faculty member Marianne Adams will present a piece dedicated to her grandmother called “My Nonie (1894-1991).” Student Anna Smith will present her piece “G-Force,” and Amanda Morse will present her own modern dance work.

Other local contributions to the show include department of theatre and dance faculty member Sue Williams, who designed the costumes, and students Rachel Sherman and Dan Matthews, who will run the lights.

This is the fifth year the festival has been hosted in Boone, said coordinator Susan Lutz, another Theatre and Dance faculty member.

Originally held only in Greensboro, the festival was invited four years ago to begin touring to five different parts of North Carolina. The festival now travels to Asheville, Boone, Greensboro, Raleigh and Wilmington. “It is a way to give professional dancers in North Carolina a chance to perform,” said Lutz.

Traveling to different parts of the state also allows the audience a chance to see performers they may not have been able to see otherwise, said Lutz.

The show will be mostly a variety of modern dances, she said. “It [the festival] has been very successful in the past, with good audience reception,” said Lutz.

Dance workshops with two of the performers will be held in Broome-Kirk Gymnasium as part of the festival.

Santos will hold a workshop this afternoon beginning at 3:30 p.m., and Sullivan will hold a workshop at 2 p.m. Friday.

The workshops are free and open to the public.

Tickets for each night of the festival can be purchased at the door, $4 for students and $6 for general public.