Tidbits:

Learn about new Assistant Professor Gerald Casel. Welcome to the Department of Dance, Gerald!

Congratulations to Keith Johnson for being named the 2013 Distinguished Alumnus of the Department of Modern Dance at the University of Utah.  Keith was awarded a plaque and medal of honor in two ceremonies in Salt Lake City in September.

Congratulations to Lorin Johnson for being named the Artistic Advisor for the Los Angeles Music Center’s 10th Anniversary of their dance series in 2013, and for receiving tenure and promotion to Associate Professor.

If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation to the CSULB Department of Dance, please contact Sylvia Rodriguez-Scholz at 562.985.2024 for assistance.  Make sure you contact your employer to see if they will match your funds—you may be able to double your gift to the Department of Dance!

A note from the Chair:

Welcome to our first newsletter of the 2012-13 academic year! This is a very busy month in the Department. Last weekend we welcomed over 40 dancers over the age of 30 for our inaugural Masters Pro Dance Workshop, a scholarship fundraiser for the Department of Dance. The dancers, most of whom are former dancers from NBA and NFL dance teams, came from across California for a weekend of dancing, friendship, and sore muscles! The weekend was a huge success—check out some photos on our CSULB Department of Dance page. This week will truly be “amazing” as our MFA graduate students present their fall concert, Amazing Things, featuring original dance works by six choreographers. Amazing Things plays in the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater, October 11-13. For information about both of these events, visit www.csulb.edu/dance. Fall 2012 got off to an accelerated pace even before school began in August with rehearsals for our In Collaboration concert, where twelve dance majors worked for two intense weeks learning the moving and visually stunning choreography of Bill T. Jones for our November In Collaboration concert. You can read more about this show, which has literally been two years in the making as it is part of the campus-wide B-Word project lead by the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, in this newsletter. I hope that you are able to come and see how beautifully our student dancers perform not only Mr. Jones’ choreography, but the works created by new faculty member Gerald Casel, Sophie Monat, and myself. We hope to see you at one of our “amazing” events this fall. Be sure to check out our newly restyled and repurposed website www.csulb.edu/dance for all information that you might need about the Department. Click on the Facebook icon, and you can like our new Department of Dance group page. Keep on dancing, and we hope to see you this semester!

Andrew Vaca, Chair