Rex Kennedy auditions for Dance majors senior projects

minutes before his audition began. “I know a lot of seniors, (and) it’ll be nice… auditioning for them.”

Kennedy hopes to be cast in the piece by his friend, Rachel Brady, who he met over the summer at the American Dance Festival. Brady is also his ‘big’ in the dance department, meant to be a mentor to help Kennedy through his freshman year.

“I’m excited to see what (the seniors) are doing,” said Kennedy. “I read all the descriptions of all the pieces… (and) they seem pretty interesting.”

Held during their workshop time, the audition was mandatory for all VCU dance majors through the junior level. However, just as it will be at the discretion of the seniors to dismiss any selected dancers who prove to act unprofessionally, dancers of all levels retain the right to turn down any roles in which they are cast.

Most seniors will select additional understudies in the event of dismissals, sickness or schedule conflicts.

Seniors watched from the back wall as freshmen and sophomores auditioned together, with juniors auditioning on their own.

“We all set up how we wanted the audition to run,” said Kamali Hill, a senior dance major. “We had a meeting (where) we decided what we wanted to see (and) what is each person looking for: fluidity, power, creativity, virtuosity, performance, individuality.”

The first section was strictly movement-based, with one senior orchestrating a series of gestural phrases her fellow dance majors had to mimic and commit to memory as quickly as possible.

After repeating this series of movements a few times, the following exercise required students to perform the routine again while handicapping themselves either with a tick, such as a constantly moving body part, or by holding a pose or constricting movement in some manner.

The second exercise moved students diagonally across the room from corner to corner in order to demonstrate their ability to “cover space,” as well as to explore their ability to reach varying different levels.

The third and final exercise divided dancers into groups of four to five to test their improvisation skills as well as the ways in which they were able to interact with fellow performers.

“We don’t want people that are timid and scared,” Hill said about the importance of this exercise. “We want people that will dive out there and do it.”

During Kennedy’s improv section, the freshman moved across the floor in a somewhat lumbering manner led almost entirely by his side. Near the conclusion of his session, he and an- other student ended up in a crouched tug-of-war using either one of a third dancer’s legs as the rope. Finally, as if via telepathic communication, the pair shouted simultaneously, “She’s mine,” striking an especially comical chord with the seniors before the group’s session came to a close.

“I just wish for the first round people would have… gotten more out of the box,” Kennedy said after the exercise. “That’s what I was looking for… to have fun and do some character stuff, not just watch me contact improv with this person.”

After the experience, Kennedy said he was feeling confident, but had a few critiques toward his fellow dancers.

“I felt good, I just wish they had given us more time to learn things,” Kennedy admitted. “I (also) feel like people could have been counting more and paying more attention to the rest of the group instead of acting as individuals… Yes, it’s an audition, but you’re responsible for keeping your whole group together and you can see when somebody does something and messes up.”

Following the mass audition, Kennedy was given only an hour break to get lunch before his first rehearsal with Vivian Villagrana for Nikolai McKenzie’s junior composition class.

McKenzie began his rehearsal by

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