CCBC Dance Company Presents Virtual Fall 2020 Dance Concert

Community College of Baltimore County presents the CCBC Dance Company's Fall 2020 Dance concert premiering at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 4 and can be seen on the CCBC Performing Arts YouTube channel.

The CCBC Dance Company is in residence at CCBC Essex, under the artistic direction of Melinda Blomquist and Associate Director Kristi Schaffner. The fall performance features nine CCBC students with three of the dancers performing original works created as part of their capstone project for their AFA degree in Dance.

Preparing a virtual dance concert comes with challenges, especially operating under COVID-19 guidelines. Students practiced wearing masks, danced in taped-off squares and cleaned thoroughly after classes and rehearsals. Artistic Director Melinda Blomquist challenged the choreographers to think carefully about how their work would present virtually on camera.

"Instead of developing full pieces in rehearsal and presenting them on stage as we would do for a live performance, we focused on movement phrase material in rehearsals that was later edited into the complete piece that will be presented in our virtual concert," explained Blomquist. "Much of the choreographic process happened during the editing of the video instead of in the rehearsal process in the studio with the dancers."

"This semester has been challenging working with the restrictions of how we could interact with each other and create work," Blomquist continued. "The dancers and the choreographers have found ways to create new and exciting works that would not have happened during a "normal" semester."

The CCBC Dance Company is known for holding main-stage performances in the fall and spring featuring choreography by CCBC faculty and various guest artists. The Company is also involved in community outreach with local schools providing special performances as well as master classes, lectures and demonstrations.

Although the Fall 2020 Dance Concert premiers on Friday, Dec. 4, the concert remains available for viewing on the CCBC Performing Arts YouTube channel following the event. For more information about CCBC Performing Arts concerts and productions visit www.ccbcmd.edu/concerts.

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