By: Claire Doyle
There is a lot of talent that walks around this western slope campus each day, who knew? I spent the best $6 regarding Mesa State a few weekends ago.
While many Mesa State students stay up and party on weekends there are a handful of gifted college co-eds that spend their nightlife creating a performing art. Using their bodies as a blank canvas hundreds of hours have been spent, sore muscles have been iced, and egos have been bruised all to perfect the MSC Spring Dance Concert that was held April 22-23rd. Rehearsals were scheduled weekly since the beginning of the semester back in January. Since most of the dancers that planned on performing in the concert are in the dance program at the college time was limited. Rehearsals had to be ran either late at night or on the weekend. More than 80 dancers, teachers, and behind the scene workers labored themselves for hours each week to mold original pieces of work into a special night for the audience. My close friend invited me to attend so I agreed thinking it would be a little better than my little cousin’s dance recital. Boy, was I wrong. I sat in the middle of Robinson Theater completely surprised in the best way possible. Chills filled my arms. The different pieces were displayed close to perfection. Everything from hip-hop to instrumental jazz to a tap dance number that knocked the socks off of us spectators was performed. The concert lasted almost 2 hours. I was proud of my peers that were on the stage as well as those off. Most of the audience seemed to be proud too, probably because there were a large number of family members in the crowd. In fact, I didn’t see many MSC students there. As I looked around between pieces I would estimate about 10% of the audience was the traditional Mesa State College student. Grandparents, alumni, young parents with small children seemed to consume the majority of onlookers.
Mesa State students seem to always be supporters of the traditional sports on campus. If only those athletes that compete on in a dance studio could get the credit as the ones on the court or field.