acdfa@miamidance.com 

ATTENDING SCHOOL GET ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND ADJUDICATION FORM HERE

ALL ON LINE PRE REGISTRATION TEACHING  FORMS

Dear Dance Colleague:

 New World School of the Arts Dance Division, Miami Dance Futures, Inc. in collaboration with the American College Dance Festival Association cordially invites you and your students to participate in the American College Dance Festival Association’s Southeast Region Festival, March 13 – 16, 2003, in Miami Florida.  We are planning an exciting agenda, including an outdoor evening reception and performance at Bayside Park; two full days of master classes; special faculty seminars and workshops’ summer program auditions; commercial vendors exhibit; adjudication sessions with immediate feedback; Special performance of Daksha Sheth Dance Company of India and Rising Stars; a New World School of the Arts show of dance, music, theater.  We have selected a highly accomplished and well respected panel of adjudicators:  Daniel Nagrin, from Arizona, Mary Barnett, from New York and Gerri Houlihan, from North Carolina..

 We anticipate an enthusiastic response to our festival and our space is somewhat limited.  Therefore, we will register participants on a first paid - first accepted  basis.  When we reach maximum capacity (possibly as early as mid-January), we will be unable to accept additional participants.   Please plan to register early.  

We would like to encourage the attention to diversity within informal and formally adjudicated concerts, master classes and panel discussion &/or lectures.  We would like to encourage all institutions to attend and participate in the full array of scheduled events,  whether or not planning to present choreography for adjudication.  The experience of taking master classes, viewing the concerts, and listening to the adjudicators' comments, as well as the energy exchange among dancers and faculty from other schools has always proven invaluable for our students, regardless of their levels of dance experience.  You need not be an ACDFA member to attend the festival.  However, if you have not yet joined ACDFA, we urge you to do so to help further the important work we do for college and university dance programs.

 A great deal of initial planning for our Southeast Region Festival has already occurred.  We now need to know how many colleges plan to participate and which ones wish to have dances adjudicated for the Gala Concert.  If you would like to participate, please return the enclosed "Festival Registration Form" you may pay by check, MasterCard/Visa or Purchase Order Number for your total festival fees by our deadline of January 10, 2002, January 31, 2002 to accommodate school who start late in January.   I want to reiterate, we will register participants on a first paid - first accepted  basis.  Although we can handle a lot of students we don’t want you to be disappointed.  Please remember that there is an increase in fees after December 1, 2002. 

If you are interested in the adjudication process, please refer to the enclosed "Adjudication Guidelines."  If you choose to adjudicate two pieces, at least one must be choreographed by a student.  Time and space will limit the number of pieces we can adjudicate.  Pieces will be accepted for adjudication, like registration, on a first paid - first accepted basis.  Please remember you must be an institutional member in good standing of ACDFA in order to qualify for adjudication. 

 New World School of the Arts is located in the heart of downtown Miami, a vibrant international city of great diversity.  The school is centrally located minutes form the laid-back island feel of Coconut Grove, the sleek hipless of South Beach, and the dazzling natural beauty of Biscayne Bay with its blue-green water and pristine beaches.  The arts are flourishing here amid the mix of various styles, forms, ethnic heritages, cultures and aesthetics intermingling and colliding and creating a global renaissance.

With an average temperature of 72 degrees and an average rainfall of 2 inches, Miami in March is a perfect setting for ACDFA’s Southeast Region Festival.  I hope you will be able to join us and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 Sincerely

                                            Adjudication Fee.....................................................................................................$100.00 per piece

                                       Some classes may be taken on an individual basis......................................................$20.00 per class

 NON-REFUNDABLE fees to attend the Southeast Regional Festival can be paid by sending

                                               one check (individual checks will not be accepted) per school to:

The check should be made out to:

e-mail    acdfa@miamidance.com

Schedule

Thursday March 13th 2003

Friday March 14th 2003

Saturday March 15th 2003

Sunday March 16th 2003

Location

New World School of the Arts, a Florida Center of Excellence in the Visual and Performing Arts, provides a comprehensive program of artistic, creative and academic development through a curriculum that reflects the rich multi-cultural community of Miami. New World School of the Arts is located on the Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC) campus, which includes the Chapman Center. All classes, lecture demonstration and performances are within walking distance of the hotel. The Gala performance are at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts (3½ blocks from the hotel), built in 1926 as a silent movie palace. It is now the "Grand Dame" of South Florida’s arts and entertainment showplaces, with its shimmering stars and golden balconies suggesting another era when performances were events.

New World School of the Arts is an educational partnership of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Merret R. Stierheim, Superintendent; Miami-Dade Community College, Eduardo Padron, President; and the University of Florida, Charles E. Young, President. 

 Travel

The closest airport is Miami International Airport (MIA), although sometimes you can get less expensive flights into the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL). Once you arrive at MIA you can take a taxi from the airport to the hotel for approximately $17 or take the "Super Shuttle" (1-305-871-2000) for $9 (located outside of baggage claim by Ground Transportation Desk). If you are arriving at (FLL) you can take a taxi for $45–$60 or use "Airport Express" (1-800-244-8252) for $12 to downtown Miami (located outside of baggage claim by Ground Transportation Desk). 

Accommodations

Riande Continental and the Holiday Inn are Hotels designated as ACDFA hotels. Please let the hotel know that your are with the American College Dance Festival. It is within easy walking distance to the New World School of the Arts, Bayside Shopping Center, Restaurants, and the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts.

Add’ 12.5% tax to these rates, for all hotels. There may also be a $1.60 per room per night key charge or safe charge

AS SOON AS YOU KNOW YOU ARE ATTENDING, PLEASE MAKE RESERVATIONS

Food

In addition to the restaurants and food courts at Bayside Marketplace, downtown Miami has many other ethnic food courts and eating establishments in every price range. You will be given a list of restaurants, clubs, and places of interest in downtown Miami,  in your packet at registration. 

Local Transportation

If you are in the mood for the beach or the South Beach nightlife, you can catch a bus (S, C, or MAX to Miami Beach) or grab a taxi on the opposite side of Biscayne Boulevard. There are three clearly marked bus stops located across Biscayne Boulevard. Buses run from 5:30 am to approximately 12:45 am and cost $1.25. To get around downtown Miami you can walk or use the Metromover for $0.25. Straight up 2nd Street past New World School of the Arts at Government Center is the Metrorail, one of the major modes of transportation for the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County. You can also catch buses to other parts of the city at the central bus stop located between Flagler Street and SE 1st Street on N. Miami Avenue.

Please Take Note

Miami is a major tourist city with all the usual benefits – and risks. Downtown is filled with tourists shopping or rushing to catch a cruise ship. Be prepared to deal with many languages – at times you will feel like you are in a foreign country.

Climate and Clothing

 The weather in Miami in March can be warm but at times can be windy and wet. So it is best to be prepared for anything. Bring warm weather clothing with a sweater or jacket for the air-conditioned lecture rooms and restaurants. We recommend an umbrella – for rain or sun – and a couple of swim suits for the beach, hotel pool or just for baking in the sun. Bring some sun screen or you can buy it here. If you don’t like carrying an umbrella, bring a hat. The attire for the festival itself is casual!

Video and Audio Taping

 Attendees will not be permitted to tape performances or classes.

Adjudication Guidelines For Participating Schools 

1. Only ACDFA INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS in good standing are eligible for adjudication.  Membership dues are payable to ACDFA and sent to the Executive Director.  See current Membership Brochure for details or call the ACDFA National Office at 301 770-4443.

 2. The ACDFA has established regions for purposes of organization only. Members are not restricted to participation exclusively or solely in their own geographic area.  International members are always considered out of region.  All members may participate in one or more regional festivals each year. 

 3.  No more than two pieces from any institution may be adjudicated in a festival year.  Once a work has been adjudicated, it cannot be submitted for adjudication at any other festival during the same festival year. 

 4. A work presented for adjudication may be choreographed in any idiom by a student, faculty member, or professional; however only students may perform.  Performers include anyone seen by the audience.

A student is one who is officially declared by the represented institution as being a degree, diploma, or certificate-seeking candidate, full or part-time, at that institution during the academic year in which the work is adjudicated.  If a student graduates in the Fall semester, they may perform in the Spring adjudication concerts.  However, if a student drops out, or is not considered a student in the Spring semester, they are not eligible to perform in the adjudication concerts.

 5. If two works are submitted, at least one must be choreographed by a student. An adjudication fee will be charged for each piece.

6. If you choose to bring a work choreographed by a festival adjudicator, that work will be adjudicated only for performance and not considered for the gala concert.  All adjudicators will be informed In advance of this information. 

7.  It is the responsibility of each school to secure permission from the choreographers prior to bringing any choreography to regional and national festivals for performance.

 8. A faculty member or other chaperone from the participating institution must accompany the students.

 9. No attempt is made either during the adjudication process or in the selection of works for the adjudicated concert to classify or equate college dance programs. All works presented for adjudication will be evaluated in terms of Performance and Choreography.   

10.  Prior to the adjudication presentation, regional festival participants (faculty & students) should avoid contacting the adjudicators directly. Questions concerning the adjudication should be directed to the Festival Coordinator or other ACDFA Representative.

 11. The maximum time for each work presented for adjudication is 12 minutes. The burden of meeting the time requirement rests with the choreographer.  ACDFA recommends that the choreographer allow a time margin within the twelve-minute limit for technical errors or theater peculiarities.   The dance will be judged to begin when any one of the perceived elements of choreographic choice (lights, sound, movement) is visible or audible to the audience. This includes the rising of the curtain on a pre-lit stage.  The dance ends when all perceived elements of choreographic choice have been diminished (no lights, no sound, no movement). Bows are not included in the twelve minute time limit unless they are required as part of the dance by the choreographer. It is the responsibility of the Festival Coordinator to enforce the time limit.

 12. An audio tape or CD of concert quality will be provided by the choreographer for the adjudication in the format specified by the Festival Coordinator.

 13. Students performing in the adjudicated concert must be officially registered at the festival and are expected to participate fully in festival events. 

14. A registration fee must be paid for each festival participant with the exception of Board members.

 15. Cast replacements for works accepted for the Gala Concert must be approved by the adjudicators.

 16.  If a work is unable to be performed in the Gala Concert, notification must be given to the Festival Coordinator prior to the Gala selection. 

17.  Adjudicated works that are not accepted for the Gala Concert in one festival year may be reworked for adjudication in subsequent festival years.  However, once a work has been accepted for a Gala Concert performance, it may not be resubmitted for adjudication by the same institution.

     ACDFA Southeast Regional

Informal Concert Guidelines

 1.  All groups and individuals registered for the festival are eligible to perform in the Informal Concert. 

 2.  Dances  presented in the Informal Concert are restricted to work not being adjudicated.

 3.  In the interest of creating opportunities for many schools, we are requesting that only one dance per  institution be shown in this informal concert.

 4.  Performance slots will be filled on a first come, first served basis.

 5.  The maximum time for each work presented in the Informal Concert is 12 minutes.  The burden of  meeting the time requirement rests with the choreographer.  ACDFA recommends that the choreographer allow a time margin within the twelve minute limit for technical errors or                 theater peculiarities. 

 6.  A brief spoken introduction may precede the piece.  If so, the introduction time must be included in the 12 minute time limit for the dance.

 7.  Works-in-progress may be shown.

 8.  An Audio Cassette or CD of concert quality must be provided by the choreographer.

 Adjudicators

 Daniel Nagrin

Been there, done that Daniel Nagrin might say dismissively, but instead he has written down the lessons learned along the way in three lively books (see below). His credentials include summer resort gigs, club dates, Broadway musicals, acting stints, solo concert work, co-founding the Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company, and six decades of teaching, coaching, and choreography.  It is eye-opening to realize that he was born in 1917, a year after Martha Graham, with whom he studied, began taking her first dance classes at Denishawn. At age eighty he is still actively engaged in exploring and sharing his knowledge of dance. His latest book, The Six Questions: Acting Techniques for Dance Performance, examines the art form in prose that has the kinetic energy of jazz, whose varying rhythms he has explored so fruitfully onstage and in the studio.
  Nagrin grew up in New York City and sampled the social dancing at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom during the 1930s heyday of the lindy hop. Later he lectured and demonstrated how jazz saucily influenced social dancing. Starting with the cakewalk, he pointed out how it exuberantly and humorously expanded polite ballroom dancing, how the Charleston functioned as a peek-a-boo step toward women's liberation, and how the intricate lindy formulated a male-control dance.
  As a performer, he was particularly interested in roles featuring the male as outsider. For him, jazz was not a finger-popping, torso-twisting game of self-involvement but a tool to explore character. His most famous solo, Strange Hero (1948), originally Strange American Hero, was about a classic outsider, the gangster. He didn't always admire the characters whom he studied, but looked to find the innocence (his word) of the character-in essence, the guiding code of conduct, whether good or bad.  s a child, Nagrin restlessly took breaks from doing homework to move a around to music on the radio. Later, he realized that he was dancing. He took his I first formal classes at the New Dance Group and at Graham's studio. He arranged his own academic program at City College of New York to include dance and organized a campus club that invited dance teachers to give weekly classes. He had the opportunity to see the work of the founding generation of modern dance, among them his future wife, Helen Tamiris. While in college, Nagrin began to review these dancers for the school paper, The Campus, and to express his own basic artistic sense by praising works that spoke about humanistic values.   After graduation in 1940, Nagrin auditioned for a resort job at Unity House, where he met Sue Ramos and fell under the spell of her jazz dancing. They worked together for a year and a half; then he found himself selected for a revue choreographed by Tamiris, who introduced him to club dates. Following service in the Army Air Force, he began appearing in: Broadway musicals that Tamiris choreographed and also joining her in concerts. As early as 1944 he had prepared a solo on abolitionist John Brown. In 1948 he began choreographing a series of solo portraits of conflicted men in which social concerns were reflected. How does one live in an urban environment (Man of Action), or use "outsider" music (Jazz, Three Ways), or establish a place for oneself as primitive ,man had done (With My Eye and With My Hand)? He further examined the situation of a man caught in a racially riven society (Not Him But Me) or attempting to deal with the anxieties of modern life with a simple assertion of self.

Meanwhile his Broadway career flourished with a string of successful shows which he was Tamiris's lead male dancer. Nagrin won a 1955 Donaldson (precursor of the Tony) Award for her Plain and Fancy. After this triumph, both withdrew from show business to teach and work toward establishing a modern dance ensemble. The Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company lasted six years (1960-65) with modest success. After Tamirisdied in 1966, Nagrin began a series of tours, during which he became preoccupied with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. By 1968 he had created The Peloponnesian Wars, a full-evening solo paralleling the Vietnam War with the disastrous conflict between Athens and Sparta.

 In 1971 he formed The Workgroup, with dancers developing improvisational pieces to jazz rhythms. He celebrated his sixtieth birthday dancing on a gala program with fellow artists. Classical tap dancer Paul Draper strung together and developed phrases selected from solos Nagrin had created-a combination of classically correct bearing and elegantly percussive jazz riffs.
  Nagrin was inspired by and worked with jazz before it was generally respected in the modern dance world. His own performing presence and virtuosity, his upright carriage and the infinite variations he wrought on the blues, pop, and bop walks made him a standout in any context. Pride and an assured presentation of the values in his subjects were present in the portraits. He placed the person accurately in the context of his time and continues in his teaching and writing to share that honest, no-nonsense approach to professional life.

Mary Barnett

Mary J. Barnett, Dancer, Dance Educator, Consultant, Cho9reographer, is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music.  For 15 years she was the Associate Artistic Director and Rehearsal Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater under the direction of Alvin Ailey.  Ms. Barnett has danced with the companies of Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Donald McKayle and Lar Lubovitch, as well as on Broadway and television.  She studied mime in Paris at the Marcel Marceau School and with Marceau’s mentor and teacher Etienne Decroux.  Ms Barnett has taught dance workshops and master classes throughout the United States, Europe, Israel and Africa.  She has also been on the teaching staff at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Dance Theater of Harlem and Connecticut College Summer Dance Festival.  Ms. Barnett has choreographed for drama and dance productions in New York, Boston, Israel, Philadelphia, Trinidad and Germany.  Presently she teaches dance and related dance studies in the New York Public School System.  Ms Barnett holds a B.A. in dance and theater and a Masters in Urban Multicultural Education.

Gerri Houlihan