UNLV Dance students in white tops and black pants smiling into the camera.
Mar. 17, 2025

UNLV Dance attended the American College Dance Association Conference South-Central Region at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and took three works to the festival. Two for the adjudicated concert:

  • Jason Hortin and Hayley Meier’s co-choreographed, States of Form Reorganized (Faculty Work)
  • Tiera Salas, Do You See Me? (Undergraduate Student Work)

Each of these were selected as 2 of 48 works to be adjudicated at the conference.

After all works were assessed and critiqued, the panel of three adjudicators chose a Gala concert of works from the 48 works presented.

As a huge honor, Jason and Hayley’s work, with Michael Jarett’s lighting, danced by eight of our dance majors, and stage managed by one of our production majors, was selected for the Conference's Gala Concert.

UNLV also presented a third student work by Marie Whitehead at the Informal Concert.

"UNLV’s performance at the festival was brilliant and showed the caliber of artistic excellence and the ethos of professionalism, work, and passion that makes us such a strong dance program," said UNLV Dance chair, Louis Kavouras. "You would have been so proud to see how well the work showed and how strongly the work was received. It has been over 20 years since we attended an American College Dance Association conference. We got out of the habit because our priorities shifted to utilizing funding to travel for international performances. The students delivered the work so professionally and so cleanly. It did not look like collegiate work. And so many were astonished at the caliber of technical performance, choreography, and production at UNLV."

Also accomplished at the conference:

  • Jason Hortin also presented a jazz dance class
  • Hayley Meier presented a ballet class
  • Michael Jarett presented a lecture on how to work with a lighting designer
  • Louis Kavouras presented a Hawkins Modern Dance Class and also conducted a panel discussion with other Hawkins teachers celebrating Lucia Dlugoszewski and her contribution to Hawkins Modern Dance and music.

Huge Congrats to Jason, Hayley, Michael, and the UNLV Dance and Production Majors!

Next year UNLV Dance is hosting this conference for our region, during the 2026 spring break (March 18-21), and Michael Jarett will be the conference coordinator.