The Movement Dance Convention

The Movement Dance Convention Committee would be a way as dancers to give back to our community in order for others and ourselves to grow in our craft. As current students, it has been our dream to broaden the dance horizon of students at SUNY New Paltz as well as provide an outlet for student dancers in New York to have an affordable opportunity to be instructed by experienced choreographers. This convention will not only motivate students and further enhance their knowledge of dance, but also inspire students who are looking to pursue a career in dance to experiment learning different techniques and styles. This past year at SUNY New Paltz we have reorganized the Dance Association and worked hard to provide free classes on campus by students, for students. We have also presented and enabled students from all dance organizations on campus to participate in THE PULSE Dance Conference this past January in Atlantic City, NJ. That experience was only the beginning for what we hope will erupt further dance opportunities for the students at our university and surrounding schools who are not fortunate enough to have dance programs for students aside from a few classes for theatre majors and student-run dance organizations (many of which we are proud of). Our diverse dance community consists of Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, African Dance, Asian, Theatrical, House and Tap, and it has thrived through students-teaching-students and occasionally guest professional dancers that teach classes on campus. We think it is time to enable these students to further their horizons by experiencing professional workshops taught by experts invited to our campus in a convention that would enable students a new dance experience that they have never been able to have before. The Movement Dance Convention would be an annual event, hosted one weekend, for 3 full days on campus. We have been looking for diverse choreographers from New York City and from our own New Paltz staff to participate. Other dance organizations are invited to help in any way they can as volunteers to assist our guests and the visiting choreographers. The students we are looking to attract and sign up for registration would be later teens and students from the university, alumni of the university, other universities, surrounding dance communities and others who would like to participate. We will have a registration process to limit the amount of people who can participate in each class according to the amount of space available. We are hoping to donate a certain amount of income from this conference to two organizations affiliated with dance, Drea’s Dream which is a pediatric dance/movement therapy program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as well as Elle’s Encore which is a fund dedicated to a recent alumni of SUNY New Paltz Noelle Lucivero who passed away this past December at the young age of 25. She was a large part of our dance community who had great passion and enthusiasm to bring dance to our campus and the community; her family and friends have created a fund to help afford the medical costs and create a foundation to give back to the organizations Noelle was a thriving member of. Ultimately, we would love to give back to dance what dance has given to us.