by Elise Goitia '18

Football has the Super Bowl. Basketball has the NBA Finals. For college dancers, there's the National College Dance Festival.

This year, Angela McNeal ‘16 is among the collegiate dancers in the Midwest/North Central region to perform a piece at the prestigious American College Dance Association's 2016 National College Dance Festival. Three pieces from the region were selected for the festival.

"It's the World Series of dance events at the collegiate level," said Associate Professor of Dance Jennifer Smith. "We made it to our World Series."

When Smith and Assistant Professor of Dance Kathleen Ridlon chaperoned seven students to the ACDA North Central Region conference, they had hoped one of their choreographed pieces would be chosen to perform at the end-of-conference Gala Concert.

Smith never anticipated that her choreographed piece, "The Raven," which McNeal performs, would also be chosen as one of three pieces from the North Central conference to be presented in June at the ACDA National College Dance Festival.

That conference will take place in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The event usually hosts schools such as Juilliard, UCLA, California Institute of the Arts, and the Boston Conservatory.

"This was a 20-year endeavor and the fact that Knox, a kind of underdog institution, is going to be at the Kennedy Center is huge," Smith commented. "It's a great statement on the strength of our dance program. I couldn't be more excited to be a part of it."

Smith originally choreographed "The Raven" in 2009. The piece was described by adjudicator judges at the North Central Conference this way: "Dark humor and wit are the driving forces behind this edgy retelling of Poe's 'The Raven.' The sophisticated sensuality of the dancer is haunting."

Today, McNeal considers the piece "very precious" to her.

"This isn't just dancing in another piece," said McNeal. "That's why I think I deliver it so hard, because of the place that it comes from. For me, this has been something that's been four years in the making, and now it's actually happening."

McNeal, who is from Oakland, California, is a self-designed major in dance and community engagement and a minor in anthropology and sociology. She says that this "incredible experience" has opened up her future to more potential opportunities in dance.

"There's so much still I have to learn, there's so much training I still need, but I appreciate what I have," added McNeal. "There was a lot of stuff I've worked on since day one to now. It was a really great way to cap off my dance experience at Knox."

McNeal and Smith look forward to travelling to the National College Dance Festival this summer. McNeal added that the experience will be "something for the books."

"When you love something so much, and you're given such a high honor, it really means a lot," she said. "It was really eye-opening to know what I could do."