Welcome to the auditions for
the Macalester College THDA
Spring 2024 Dance Concert!
Please note the following information for the audition on
Sunday January 21, 2024
12:00-2:30pm
Fox Dance Studio, T120
Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center
Please arrive between 11:30am - 11:50 am to register, and give yourself time to warm up. Advance registration is not required.
Upon arrival, you will:
- Let the Stage Manager know your
- Name
- (if you wish) Pronouns
- Receive a shirt tag and safety pins to attach to your clothes
- Fill out a provided weekly calendar with your availability for rehearsals
At 12:00pm we’ll do a little introduction and expectations review, and then you will all dance, led by the choreographers for the dance concert!
At the end of the audition, you’ll note on your calendar sheet how many pieces you’re interested in dancing in, and if you have (up to 3) preferences for a choreographer!
Rehearsal Expectations:
Performance in a mainstage dance concert is a credit-bearing (2 credits) course at Macalester. These credits are applied at the end of the semester, and thus do not count against the semester credit limit/cost.
Note that every choreographer will start rehearsing the week of January 22, and will rehearse 4 hours a week (in two 2-hour blocks).
There are two showings on
Saturday Feb. 24, 2024 9am - noon
Saturday March 30, 2024 9am - noon
Each group will present at the showing, and there will be a faculty and professional guest artist panel discussion and feedback on the work at the end of the showing. Dancers and choreographers are required to attend the entire showing and panel discussion.
The exact schedule is TBD.
Additionally, Level Set (when we set the lighting and sound) will take place across the weekend of Saturday April 2 and Sunday April 3. Each group only needs to attend one approximately 2.5 hour slot in that weekend, the exact schedule of which is TBD, so that we can ensure that everyone in a group can attend their allotted time slot.
Technical Rehearsals are Monday April 22- Thursday April 25 from 6pm - 10pm. You would need to attend ALL of these.
Performance Expectations:
Performances are
Friday April 26: Warmups 6pm, Show starts at 7:30pm
Saturday April 27 (2 show day):
1st show: Warmups 12:30pm, Show starts at 2pm
2nd show: Warmups 6pm, Show starts at 7:30pm
Load out (“strike”) is on
Sunday April 28, and is a 4-hour call, usually in the afternoon. Dancers are expected to participate.
A reflection and review session will take place on
Tuesday April 30, noon - 1pm.
Choreographer information:
Guest Choreographer Leila Awadallah
Guest Choreographer Tumelo Khupe '20
Faculty Choreographer Jill Lile
Faculty Choreographer Marciano Silva Dos Santos
Alumni Choreographer Skye Reddy '22
Student Choreographer Nicola Wong
Student Choreographer Nibia Becerra Santillan
Student Choreographer Cassandra Wright
Jill Lile (She/her)
Jill Lile has a BFA and an MFA in dance from Texas Christian University and the University of Illinois. She has danced with a variety of companies in both ballet and modern including Ft. Worth Ballet, Ballet Omaha, Madison Ballet, Illinois Dance Theatre, Ballet Arts Minnesota, and Beverly Blossom and Company. She has worked with Anna Sokolow, Sally Wilson, and has danced in many of the classic ballets and in Tudor works. Dr. Lile is also a practicing chiropractor and acupuncturist specializing in the treatment and prevention of dance injuries.
Tumelo Khupe is a krumper, emerging choreographer, and actress based in the Twin Cities area. She began focusing on her passion for performing arts while still living in Botswana, before moving to the United States to pursue a performing arts career in 2016. Through work with Maia Maiden, Darrius Brown, and more recently, Herb Johnson 111, she has become a part of the street dance community, more specifically the Minnesota Krump (MN KRUMP) community, with alias "Melo.” She also works closely with mentors Wynn Fricke, Claudia Tatinge Nascimento, and Patricia Brown.
Tumelo is interested in how krump offers endless possibilities for storytelling through its technique and the language shared amongst its practitioners, and providing a shared experience that encourages community building.
With a BA in music theater and a minor in dance, Tumelo has received awards including the David Wick Leadership Award, David Wick Best Choreography Award, and The Mabel Meta Frey Outstanding Theater Artist Award, as well as first place in the first "King of the Ring" krump tournament event in Texas in 2020.
Leila Awadallah (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and film wanderer based between Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce and Beirut, Lebanon. Her research in dance centers movement that activates relationships to land / place / peoples, rooted in the context of her own skin as a body and soul that holds indigenous Palestinian, Arab-American, SWANA, Sicilian and mixed Mediterranean worlds and ways. She is the founder of the Body Watani (body-as-homeland) dance project and practice in collaboration with Noelle Awadallah. Body Watani's first piece, TERRANEA is supported by National Performance Network, Goethe Institute, MSAB, ARENA, Links Hall and the Arab American National Museum and will premiere at Red Eye Theater in April 2023. Her solo work YISSH (2019) which was commissioned / presented by the Cedar Tree Project (Winona) has been performed at festivals in Lebanon, Egypt and soon: Palestine, and Italy. She is a McKnight Dancer Fellow (2023), Jerome Hill Fellow (2021-2023), and previously a Springboard 20/20 and Daring Dances Fellow. Leila's works have been supported through research residencies and performances at the Hammana Artist House, Amalgam, and Lebanese National Theatre (Lebanon), Camargo Foundation (France), Diyar School (Palestine), Arab American National Museum (Michigan), and most widely across spaces and places in and around her home in the Twin Cities. Mentored by Ananya Chatterjea, she trained, taught and performed with Ananya Dance Theatre as a company member (2014-2019) and she is a founding member of the Kelvin Wailey dance trio (2015-2023). Leila has a BFA in Dance and minor in Arabic Language & Literature from the University of Minnesota.