
Image by Emily Smith
Director's Note from the Fall '24 Dance Showcase
Get Your Tickets Now for "Streams of Consciousness"
For over 20 years, the Saint Mary’s College Dance Company has been supporting emerging choreographers create, produce, and present their choreography as a part of their studies of Dance in the Performing Arts Department. My title as Concert Director really means that I’m working with the students to become artists and leaders of today. And wow!... These eight students (Liam McCullar, Zoey Doherty, Citlali Gallo, Gianna Ottati, Cadence Godwin, Melanie Maira Parlan, Erica Hardy, and Lu Price) are incredible at both. Streams of Consciousness is a spectacular production that highlights these student’s amazing artistry, the technical prowess of our dancers, the incredible production and design teams, and allows sixty dancers to share themselves through the gift of performance.
Streams of Consciousness is a show that we started dreaming about together throughout the spring and summer months through proposals, conversations, and an ongoing text-thread (that I was fortunately not on). The Senior Class then starts off the fall semester with auditions and casting, bi-weekly rehearsals, production meetings, photoshoots, working with designers, creating posters and digital content, writing a press release, etc. Over just a short twelve weeks, these students have created a full-length production of the highest professional standards of dance, and with the powerful perspective of putting collaboration and community care at the forefront of how we make the show.
These choreographers honor each other's different artistic voices, movement styles, aesthetics, choreographic methods and dance training, while also finding their collective strength as a cohort. When choosing the title Streams of Consciousness, the students were reflecting back the ideas of honoring the many- the diverse pathways- the multiple ways of knowing and exploring our lived experiences. In this shared concert, students are exploring ideas and themes that are important to them such as culture and identity, connection, nostalgia, societal pressure, and how the study of the natural world can translate to more understanding of human relationships. As the audience, we have the honor to bear witness to the complexities of their choices, their joy, their beauty, their longing.
As we round the corner towards the end of the year 2024, we are collectively coping with multiple global crises, wars and genocides, the polarized political landscape in the United States, the continued effects of a global pandemic and critical social concerns around justice and equality. As people on this planet, we are holding so much uncertainty. As a program, we are supporting our students to become leaders and engaged citizens of the world: to be problem solvers, the visionaries, the artistic voices that rise to meet the challenges of our times. Streams of Consciousness is both an artistic performance and community endeavor, we welcome you to experience the fullness of this dance production.
Please join us and support live performing arts, the Saint Mary’s College Dance Company, and our students. I hope that you leave this show feeling full and inspired and perhaps recognize how small acts of beauty transform the world.
-Shaunna Vella, Concert Director
Performances in LeFevre Theatre:
Thursday, November 21 at 8pm (night before Thanksgiving Break begins for students)
Friday, November 22 at 8pm
Saturday, November 23 at 2pm (also live-streamed)
Saturday, November 23 at 8pm
Tickets: Purchase tickets online at stmarys-ca.edu/dance-fa24 SMC Students $10; SMC Faculty/Staff, Non-SMC Students $15; Gen. Admission $20
A limited number of tickets are available at LeFevre Theatre Box Office via cash/check only 30 minutes before each performance.
Donations to the Dance Program: stmarys-ca.edu/dancegives
Please help us spread the word about our $5,000 per year Performing Arts (Dance, Music, and Theatre) Scholarships available to incoming first year students who intend to major or minor in the Performing Arts. They are renewable for all four years and may be combined with other scholarships and financial aid. This year, the East Bay Performing Arts FULL-RIDE Scholarship (tuition, room, and board) will also be awarded to one incoming first-year East Bay Performing Arts student who identifies as Black or is of African descent and plans on majoring or minoring in Dance, Music, or Theatre. See stmarys-ca.edu/performing-arts/scholarships for more details. Applicants must first apply to the college via the Common App. Deadline for the scholarship: Nov. 30, 2024.