2025 RDA/NE Festival
April 24-26, 2025
Join us in Scranton, PA at the Scranton Hilton & the Scranton Cultural Center for the 2025 Regional Dance America/Northeast Festival. Three days of classes with guest teachers and musicians from around the country and three evenings of performances by the 12 member companies.
Performances & classes will be held in the historic Scranton Cultural Center. Dancers will also take master classes in ballet, pointe, modern, jazz and contemporary dance. Classes will also be held in the Scranton Hilton. Performance times: Thursday, April 24 - 7:00 PM; Friday, April 25 - 7:00 PM; Saturday, April 26 - 6:00 PM Ticket prices are $35.00.
Tickets for all three performances will be available online. Check back as the festival approaches for a link to ticket sales.
Not a Member yet – but still interested in attending?
Contact RDA/NE Membership Chair, Erin Robbins, for more information by clicking here.
2025 national Festival Adjudicator
Carol Anglin serves this year’s Adjudicator for the festival and will travel to each RDA/NE company from Ohio to New Hampshire to watch the companies in class and select works to be presented at this year’s festival.
Carol Smitherman Anglin was founding Artistic Director of the Louisiana Dance Foundation and resident dance company, Louisiana Dance Theatre, an Honor Company and 25-year member of Regional Dance America/SW, which performed throughout America, in Russia, Europe, and Canada. Carol directed and produced more than 600 master classes, dance festivals, and performances in Shreveport from 1982-2016 including residencies with Judith Jamison, Robert Battle, Dianne Maroney-Grigsby, Sylvia Waters, Milton Myers, Ana Marie Forsythe, Christopher Huggins, Ceyhun Ozsoy, Gennadi Vostrikov, Soili Arvola, Michael Vernon, John Magnus, Nikoloz Makhateli, Tatiana Tchernova, Joe Tremaine, Gus Giordano, Chet Walker, Jon Lehrer, Charles McGowan, Billy Siegenfeld, and many others.
Professional dance companies presented under her artistic direction included multiple residencies and performances of Ailey II, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Feld Ballets, Ballet Eddy Toussaint de Montreal, Korea’s Universal Ballet, LehrerDance, Jump Rhythm Jazz, plus guest artists from San Francisco Ballet, Houston Ballet, ABT, NYCB, Paris Opera Ballet, and more.
As a Ballet and Modern teaching artist, Carol has taught globally in Russia, Europe, and Canada. She was the first American to teach Modern Dance at the School of Marina Semyonova in Moscow (1990) followed by a yearlong exchange of seventy Soviet / American dancers between Moscow and Shreveport.
As founding director and instructor of Carol Anglin Dancenter, Inc. (1982-2016), her studio became an incubator for the development of dancers, teachers, choreographers, composers, costumers; company repertoire; audience development; collaborations and partnerships; community outreach; and more.
For 34 years, Carol taught 40+ classes per week to students from all socio-economic backgrounds in studios, public schools, colleges, and universities. Many of Carol’s students have pursued professional dance careers including Ashley Murphy (Principal dancer of Dance Theatre of Harlem & The Washington Ballet, current position) and Brandi Coleman (Assistant Professor of Jazz at SMU; Associate Artistic Director and principal dancer of Chicago’s Jump Rhythm Jazz Project).
Carol continues her position as guest artist at Grambling State University (1982-present) where she and GSU Artistic Director and former Alvin Ailey soloist, Dianne Maroney-Grigsby, partnered for 34 years – combining artists, audiences, and resources in Shreveport, Grambling, Ruston, Nachitoches, and throughout the state of Louisiana. The two artists continue to work together as teachers & choreographers.
A SRAC Artist Fellow, Carol’s choreography has been selected for Regional Dance America Gala Performances, Tanzsommer Innsbruck Galas in Austria, performances in Russia, and several Jazz Dance World Congresses in Chicago and Washington, D.C. where she received choreography awards at Northwestern University, DePaul University, The Harris Theatre; and in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center.
For 34 years, Carol choreographed for Shreveport’s Symphony, Opera, and Community Theatres. Oscar and Emmy Award recipient, William Joyce, selected Carol to choreograph the World Premiere of the Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. With a passion for community outreach and partnerships, Carol partnered with more than fifty north Louisiana organizations, churches, and educational institutions annually reaching averages of 20,000 people from underserved populations.
Carol received the 2004 Stream Award for outstanding artistic direction; artistic growth and excellence; and commitment to the Regional Dance America movement. In 2006, Carol was Adjudicator and instructor for Western Canada’s largest dance festival. Caddo Parish School Board hired Carol from 2009-11 to develop a dance program on Martin Luther King Drive at Green Oaks Performing Arts Magnet, one of Louisiana’s academically unacceptable high schools. Several of the Green Oaks students went on to graduate in Theatre and Dance at Grambling State University and are now dancing professionally. She also was the interim dance director and instructor at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) in Natchitoches, LA from 2011-13—one of Louisiana’s two state supported arts magnet high schools with whom the Louisiana Dance Foundation partnered from 2000-2013.
A Graduate Teaching Foundation Fellow (2016-2019), Carol recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma with her Master’s in Fine Arts (MFA). During her three years at OU, Carol taught Modern, Ballet, and Understanding Dance courses. In addition to setting her personal choreography on OU’s Dance Majors, she assisted Ballet and Modern Dance faculty and an international roster of OU’s guest artists including Trey McIntyre, Jean Guilliaume Weiss, and Modern Director Austin Hartel in their choreography for OU season performances. For her thesis, Carol designed a higher education course, “The Dancer as Entrepreneur: Guiding Young Dancers in Developing Community Dance Programs.” (200+ pages)
As America’s only National Association of Ballet and Modern Dance Companies, Regional Dance America’s Board of Directors named Carol Anglin a National Adjudicator in 2018. She served as RDA/SE’s Adjudicator in 2020 evaluating 15 companies performing 100 ballets in ten states. Interrupted by the COVID 19 Pandemic, Carol returned as RDA/SE’s 2021 National Adjudicator selecting three evenings of choreography for a culminating ‘virtual festival’ April 23-25, 2021. She has served as faculty member for Regional Dance America Workshops and Festivals in Atlanta, GA; Houston and Dallas, TX; Baton Rouge and Monroe, LA; and Ft. Smith, AR. Hosted by Grambling State University, Carol also taught ballet for three Black College Dance Exchanges at Louisiana’s Historically Black University attended by other HBU’s.
A fourth-generation artist and educator, Carol continues to pursue international training as a teacher and choreographer. She was one of 18 international teachers accepted to New York University to train with Mme. Claude Bessy and Serge Golovine, Directors of the Paris Opera Ballet School, where she also studied choreography by Serge Lifar and other legendary artists. Carol attended the 2006 & 2010 USA IBC Teachers Courses in Classical Ballet and Jazz in Jackson, MS. She completed the Intermediate and Advanced Horton Pedagogy Courses at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York (2011, 2017, 2020, 2023) and attended the National Dance Educator Organization’s Annual Conferences (NDEO) in Miami (2019) and virtually (2020, 2021).
With a lifelong goal of decentralizing dance in America, Carol has continued to pursue this journey since receiving her MFA in 2019. She recently taught Dance Majors in Michigan for Interlochen Center for the Arts’ Summer Intensive, for the University of Oklahoma’s three-week Summer Intensives, Hathaway Academy of Ballet in Dallas, Texarkana Civic Ballet’s Nutcracker Auditions (casting 250 dancers), Lake Charles Civic Ballet, Saint Louis Catholic High School, Feijoo Ballet, Juxtapose Dance/JetPac, and Ft. Bend Dance Academy in Houston, DeCruz Ballet of San Antonio, Regional Dance America/SE Fall Workshop in Atlanta, GA, Collective Dance Artistry of San Antonio, Queensbury Theatre/Tribble School of Performing Arts, Grambling State University’s Orchesis Dance Company’s Fall Ballet Intensives, and for Regional Dance America/SW Festival at the Eisemann Center in Dallas, TX where she taught and judged audition classes.
Since relocating to Houston during the Pandemic, Carol has enjoyed teaching Ballet and Modern classes throughout the area for Bayou City Ballet School, Houston Ballet Academy, Dance Du Coeur, Hunter Dance Center, University of Houston, as well as Ballet and Modern Company Classes for Houston’s Ad Deum Dance Company and Open Dance Project.
In September, 2023, Belhaven University hired Carol as a Guest Artist to teach Ballet, Modern and create choreography on their company. Set to the music of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music Concerts, Praise God and Dance premiered at Belhaven in February 2024.
In April 2024, Carol judged auditions for Regional Dance America’s 5th-ever National Festival in Daytona Beach, Florida, awarding numerous scholarships to RDA’s National Choreography Intensive.
Throughout the pandemic, Carol continued to mentor and guide dancers, choreographers, directors, and non-profit organizations in their missions of pursuing dance in these unprecedented times.
NOTE: In 1982, at the invitation of Dr. Will Andress, Anglin taught her first classes downtown Shreveport in Bain Hall at First Methodist Church. As enrollment increased, she wrote grants and secured enough money to build a studio in the attic and later in the basement of the church. Seh shared her vision with business and arts leaders throughout the community who told her, “It can’t be done. Not here. Not in Shreveport.” Anglin took a leap of faith anyway, and the rest is history. She is forever grateful to Dr. Andress and members of First Methodist Church for their support of her mission and ministry. They were blessed beyond anything she could have ever imagined. And the blessings continue.”
Thank you to our 2024 RDA Sponsors and Donors!
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