After a long semester of rehearsals and endlessly perfecting technique, it’s finally time to showcase all that hard work: EC’s dance department has put together their annual Fall Dance Concert.

“It’s an eclectic program, it’s all different styles of dance and all different levels, from the choreographic standpoint,” Daniel Berney, director and professor of dance, said. “We really do a high level concert, we feel it’s the best representation of our program. We’re trying to expand the viewers’ perspective of dance and the different opportunities.”

The 13-piece concert, stretched across four performance dates, is a mixture of ballet, modern, jazz, street dance, belly dance – “world dance” as Berney calls it.

In order to assemble their group of dancers, auditions were held months in advance, seeking the department’s best.

“The ones that we take are fairly advanced,” Pamela Santelman, director and instructor of dance, said. “We audition the students to see who will be in which pieces, and all the choreographers are there, choosing whatever dancers they want to use for their pieces.”

The dance concert also showcases Elizabeth Hoefner Adamis, new full-time dance instructor and director, who has choreographed two pieces for this show.

“It’s a plethora of different types of dances and different atmospheres for each dance. It’s really technique-savvy and even some of the dancers that aren’t technically there are being pushed,” Hoefner Adamis said. “[It’s] really exciting for me to see dancers that maybe you wouldn’t think couldn’t do a piece [who] are doing the work.”

Among the pieces featured is the emotional “Shifting Perceptions”, choreographed by Lesley Washington and Scarlett Hubbard, which tells the true story of Hubbard’s brother who was diagnosed with autism.

“They’ve [brought] Scarlett’s mother here to talk to them about autism, what it’s like, and what kind of mannerisms they have and they have incorporated all of that into the dance,” Santelman said. “It’s a very frantic dance. It’s powerful and very well done.”

“I think that this group of dances are a lot more personal than our past concerts,” Carreras, 20, dance major, said. “There are a lot of pieces dedicated to family members and different causes. It’s a lot more intense but the pieces are really great and the student choreography is so elevated from past years.”

“[The concert] shows a lot of technique and capabilities of where these students can actually go. There’s so much potential and a lot of talent that is being showcased,” Travell Johnson, 19, dance major, said.

The Fall Dance Concert opens today at 1 p.m. in the Campus Theatre and shows Nov. 22, 23 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 24 at 3 p.m.

“In this concert, there is [so much] camaraderie that it doesn’t even feel like we’re rehearsing, we’re all having a good time,” Carreras said. “I think that’s going to make for a really good show because you can tell that everyone is enjoying it. Hopefully the audience will feel the good energy.”