Students from around the country must audition to participate in the S.C. Summer Dance Conservatory, which runs through Aug. 3.

The concert, which is the culmination of three weeks of intensive dance instruction, will feature choreography from the classical ballets, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and Raymonda, as well as musical theatre choreography, new contemporary jazz works, and original ballet pieces.

Each year, some of the nation's top choreographers and dancers teach at the conservatory. In its 16th year, the conservatory has become one of the region's and nation's premiere summer programs for dance students 12 and older.

This year's guest-artist faculty include Fernando Bujones, Stanislav Issaev, and Stacey Calvert in ballet, and Mia Michaels and Bill Siegenfeld in jazz and contemporary. Susan E. Anderson and Issaev are artistic directors of the conservatory.

Bujones and Calvert are former dancers with the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, respectively. Issaev danced with the Moscow Classical Ballet and earned the gold medal in the National Soviet Ballet Competition, an honor shared by Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Siegenfeld is on the dance faculty at Northwestern University, where he is the principal choreographer of the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, an international touring group of dancers, singers, and actors who perform a high-energy combination of swinging jazz, blues, and Latin jazz. Michaels, who teaches at the Broadway Dance Center in New York City and The Edge in Los Angeles, choreographed Celine Dion's Vegas tour and has recently been nominated for an Emmy award for that work.

Tickets to the Aug. 2 performance are $10 and are available at the Coliseum Box Office.

For more information about the concert and conservatory, call Anderson at 7-5636.

07/03