Dance Auditions

Five College Dance Auditions at UMass Amherst with Jenna Riegel. Photo © nikki lee.

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Fall 26 Faculty Performance Dates & Audition Schedule

Please be sure you are available for these performance dates before auditioning for a project. Rehearsal intensives and course times are offered by faculty artist below. 

• MHC tech dates Nov 7-11
• MHC performance dates Nov 12-14

• SC tech dates Nov 14-18
• SC performance dates Nov 19-21** 
• **Amherst students please note this performance is Saturday evening of Thanksgiving break.
   
• AC/HC/UM tech dates Nov 29-Dec 2**
• AC performance dates Dec 3-5
• **All students please note tech starts the last Sunday evening of Thanksgiving break.

Audition Schedule

Five College Dance Spring Audition
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Location: UMass Amherst, Totman Gym

Faculty Project Information by Faculty Artist

Neri Torres 

Faculty: Neri Torres she/her, rehearsal director, FCD Repertory Project
Performing at: Amherst College and Smith College
About the work: 
Garth Fagan’s “From Before” is the this year’s Five College Dance Repertory Project. Find out  more about the project here. Garth Fagan won a Tony Award for his choreography for Disney’s Lion King. "From Before," created in 1978, explores movement from “before” Western civilization through a contemporary lens. Garth Fagan drew on African and Caribbean dance traditions while stripping away the elaborate costumes and props typical of those forms, allowing the movement, rooted in loose, torso‐centered technique, to speak with clarity and modernity. The piece has become one of Fagan’s most celebrated works, praised for its power, sophistication,and inventive use of space.”

• Please be aware that the work requires strong body isolations and the ability to move comfortably with polyrhythms, as they relate to an African-derived aesthetic of movement.
• The choreography will be taught by one of Fagan’s former soloist dancers during the intensive.

Rehearsal times: This repertory has a required intensive before classes start and will meet in the evenings during the week to accommodate Amherst College’s early start date.

• Intensive: Sunday August 30 - Sunday September 6 (weekends full days and weekday evenings)
• During the semester:  Studio 1, MW 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm at Amherst College

Cast size: - We are looking for two casts of 10–12 dancers, up to 20-24 dancers, ideally with a balanced gender grouping of performers.

Angelica Monteiro

Faculty: Angelica Monteiro
Performing at: Amherst College
About the work: Drawing from African diasporic and Latine movement vocabularies, Angelica Monteiro’s choreographic process emphasizes experimentation, musicality, and strong theatrical presence. Her work develops through collaborative movement generation and improvisation, shaping dynamic ensemble pieces that center powerful physicality and expressive performance.
This repertory work draws inspiration from the life and artistic legacy of music icon Ney Matogrosso, exploring themes of unapologetic self-expression, artistic freedom, and the courage to inhabit one’s full self on stage. The creative process will be collaborative, using improvisation, movement generation, and discussion to build a physically dynamic and theatrical dance work. Movement will draw from and experiment with African diasporic and Latinx dance forms, encouraging bold physicality and creative risk-taking. I am seeking a small ensemble of performers who are curious, fearless, and eager to explore fierce, powerful dancing while contributing their own artistic voice to the process.
Rehearsal times: Tuesday and Thursday 5p-7:30p/8p (approx.) at Amherst College
Cast size: 4-6

Jenna Riegel

Faculty: Jenna Riegel
Performing at: Amherst College
About the work: My work falls under the umbrella term of contemporary dance, but is heavily influenced by the postmodern choreographers I worked closely with during my professional career in New York City. These include, but are not limited to, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/ Dances and Bill Young and Colleen Thomas and Co. I utilize movement that combines both full-bodied and momentous vocabulary with more detail oriented articulations and gestures. I ask dancers to be collaborators in the creative process and so the movement and ideas generated for the work come both from me and my cast members. I often work non-linearly and out of sequence, so dancers must be willing to retain disparate nuggets of material until we decide upon sequencing and transitions. 
This fall, I will be making a contemporary/modern work with a smaller number of dancers (under 8). My hope is to explore A LOT of partnering and possibly speaking and text. Any other subject matter or content for inspiration is unknown at this time. Dancers who do not wish to experiment and engage with touch/contact/partnering OR speaking/text should note this on the audition form for me.
Rehearsal times: M/W 7-9 PM, Fridays 1-3 pm at Amherst College
Cast size: 6-8

Shakia Barron

Faculty: Shakia Barron she/her 
Performing at: Mount Holyoke College
About the work: This work will be presented at Mount Holyoke College and will be performed to Peter Jones music. This Fall we will be celebrating the work/ music of Peter Jones. Link to relevant work.
Rehearsal times: Fridays 1-4pm at Mount Holyoke College 
Cast size: 8