Technique and Composition with Laurel Jenkins 💫
This video combines rehearsal footage and moments from the final showing of a class built around reflection, collaboration, and student feedback. The evening featured a collective group work, duo choreographies, and individual performances created and presented by the students. Each piece brought a distinct perspective, with students introducing their own work and sharing personal manifestos with the audience
Students in Dance 0160: Introduction to Dance lead by @redleafwalks came together for an end-of-semester showing that celebrated creativity, collaboration, and performance.
The showcase highlighted the work students developed throughout the semester while giving them the opportunity to share their artistry and growth with the campus community.
Freshman Ali Mayah and Senior Evelyn Rodriguez talk about @evolution_dance_crew — a student-run group built around learning and practicing alternative dance styles.
Evo has become a family for a lot of dancers on campus. It’s where people bring their ideas, build them out with others, and turn them into something real. At the same time, they’re learning new styles, experimenting, and finding their own way of moving — together.
Auditions will open next fall ❤️
Audrey Bean is a first-year student on both @evolution_dance_crew and @riddimworlddancetroupe , Middlebury’s student-led dance groups. While Riddim is separate from the Dance Department, it gives students the chance to keep dancing, performing, and creating outside of class.
She has taken several dance classes at Middlebury and intends to major in Dance. Even while recovering from an injury, Audrey has stayed involved by focusing on choreography and the creative side of performance. This semester, she is co-choreographing a piece for Riddim alongside Odette.
In her interview, Audrey shares what dance means to her, how she balances dance in and outside of class, and why being part of Riddim has been such an important part of her college experience.
❤️🔥 Come support her and the Riddim team this Saturday, May 2, at 7:00 and 10:00 PM in Wilson Hall. Tickets: go/boxoffice/
“When will we dance together again?” ✨ we love the conversation, reflections and takeaways happening after the @middfilmandmedia@dancemidd screening last Thursday ✨
Thank you Josh and Perry for this collaborative @letterboxd review
Se Fue La Luz, Evelyn Rodriguez ‘26 senior thesis, will be shown on Thursday & Friday, April 23 & 24, 7:30–8:00 PM at MAC Dance Theatre
Welcome home! Sit down, take your jacket off, and relax while we show you all the reasons I love my culture. Se Fue La Luz embodies the phrase, “I love you, but”. Through movement, light, and archival glimpses of Dominican culture, it holds accountability for the spaces where my community falls short while celebrating its beauty, rhythm, and love. Feel the Tambora in the merengue beats, chismear a little, and witness the truths embedded in my hair
@dancemidd had the pleasure of opening @middleburycollege 2026 Spring Student Symposium and support the senior research of Evelyn Rodriguez “Decolonizing Lighting Design”
Performing the work of @snic_eternalworks
#EmbodiedScholarship #Dance #Research #Culture #Performing
Ronald Rost has been part of the Dance Department since 1982, accompanying classes, faculty and student performances, and visiting artists’ shows and workshops
In the interview, he shares how he first got into playing and collecting instruments from around the world, shaping the wide range of sounds he brings into his work today. He currently performs across Vermont with several groups, playing keyboards, Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, and more, including with The New Nile Orchestra, Gumbo Yaya, The Dirtminers, and occasionally The Eames Brothers
On campus, much of his work centres on improvisation. He talks about the process of responding to dancers in real time, catching sonic movement, and what it’s like to build the live, responsive connection between music and dance
Zoe Park, a joint Dance & Theatre major with a Music minor, shares how her background in dance, including her Creative Process class with Laurel Jenkins, led her to explore partnering, which became the foundation of her DANC 0500 independent project
She is currently developing this project alongside work from Daniel Miramontes’s Choreography & Performance (DANC 0360), where she created a solo in collaboration with students from the electronic music class. Her independent project focuses on exploring partnering and connection through movement
Stay tuned for the showing
Emma Crisler-Ruskey ’29 is currently training for multiple upcoming performances, including Zoe Park’s independent project and a solo she will present at the Spring Concert as part of Daniel Miramontes’s Choreography & Performance (DANC 0360).
She talks about feeling deeply supported throughout the process, how dance allows her to express her emotions, and the guidance she has received along the way, while sharing a glimpse into how her preparation is going.
West African Dance & Drum last week focused on the connection between movement and live music, with students learning directly alongside musicians.
The participants got the chance to learn how to play the drums themselves, building that connection from both sides of the rhythm.
With so many participants joining from across the wider Middlebury community, the space felt even more alive, bringing together people beyond campus through shared movement and sound.
Join us every Wednesday from 4:30–5:50 PM in Wilson Hall to be part of it.
📸: @ascnd.jpeg
On April 1st at Wilson Hall, we gathered for “Certainty Is Overrated,” a workshop led by Alzo Slade — a storyteller, journalist, comedian, and educator.
Stemming from curiosity, courage, and connection, the conversation challenged us to question our own beliefs and step into vulnerability with strangers. We explored what it means to truly listen — beyond assumptions, insecurities, and in-group thinking — and reflected on preference falsification and the quiet ways we sometimes suppress our own voices.
But more importantly, we practiced the opposite:
speaking up, building bridges, and choosing community
A reminder that curiosity isn’t passive — it’s brave
Huge thank you to @alzoslade & @browngirldance and to everyone who made this event possible: Oratory Now, MiddCCI, Midd Black Studies, MiddCORE, Dance Department, Conflict Transformation, Education Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, the Rohatyn Center, Writing & Rhetoric, and the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs.
