ALASKA DANCE THEATER EYES RESIDENCY STATUS.

ALASKA DANCE Theater, Alaska's largest dance organization, concludes its fifteenth performing season with the presentation of Encore! May 20 at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in Anchorage.

With the performance, ADT also fulfills the second year of its three-year requirement to qualify as a "resident company" of the Center. To become a resident company, an arts group must produce three events with a minimum of five performances in any of the performing halls of the Center per season, market a season brochure, and generate a specific amount of revenue through ticket sales.

"These requirements are challenging but not impossible," says ADT artistic director Alice Sullivan. "In addition to our annual repertory concert and Student/Company Showcase last year, we performed Wing Beat, a collaboration with a Yupik performing group, Pamyua. This year, with Encore!, collaboration is again our theme."

When ADT completes its requirements next year, it will become the only resident dance company of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. Other resident companies include the Anchorage Opera, Anchorage Concert Association, Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Alaska Junior Theater, Whistling Swan Productions, Alaska Chamber Singers, the Anchorage Concert Chorus, and the Anchorage Festival of Music.

"This is an important step in validating our presence in the Anchorage community as a viable arts organization," says Sullivan. "Fulfilling the requirements for residency company status is important. It will make possible long-range planning and enable us to work together more efficiently."

Encore! features the school's graduating students, company soloists, and company musicians. Pieces on the program include some firsts for ADT--variations from Les Sylphides and new choreography performed to commissioned scores. The program also includes Aperture, set by Chicago-based XSIGHT! dancer Julia Rhoads, recently premiered in Anchorage, and the company signature piece Mobile, choreographed by Tomm Rudd.

Dancers "graduating" from the company have been accepted to performing arts programs in colleges and universities around the country. Some hope to return to Alaska, to teach and to perform. "One of the graduates is considering eventually directing a company and school--ADT itself!" says Sullivan. "Now that so many of our dancers are graduating from the school, training outside, and readying themselves to enter the workplace as teachers and choreographers, having them return to ADT to work professionally becomes a real possibility."