Guest Artist Spotlight: Melanie George

Last week the Dance Division welcomed back Guest Artist and former KSU Faculty member Melanie George for a Sept. 21-25 Choreography Residency. Now running the Dance Minor program at American University in Washington, D.C., Melanie taught a Modern and Jazz class and worked every night (and all day Saturday) creating a new jazz work on members of the Kent Dance Ensemble.

With Student Artistic Director/Rehearsal Director Katie Naso taking notes, the cast includes Amanda Black, Jessica Kraft, Sharon Kriz, LaRonica Southerland and Sabatino A. Verlezza. Images of smoke, Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron, Edie Sedgwick, the Velvet Underground and beat chicks all contributed to the development of the work, which will be performed April 1-3 as part of the Kent Dance Ensemble concert.

Melanie was thrilled with (and a little jealous of ) the spaciousness of the new Roe Green Center dance studios, the proximity of the dance offices and our location with Theatre and Music just down the hall! A Friday night dinner with Dance faculty members gave a chance for us to catch up with one another and compare ideas about where our dance departments are heading. There was lots of laughter and wishes to get together more often.

In return for Melanie’s work on our students, Associate Professor Kimberly Karpanty will be creating a work on Melanie’s students this coming spring for their dance concert.

I guess we should now consider the Dance Department at American University a “sister (and brother) school!” Certainly we send out our thanks to them and again to Melanie George for all it took to get away and work with the Kent State dancers.

Note to Melanie: See you in April!

--Andrea Shearer (Assoc. Prof./Dance Division Director)