Success story.

ACDFA brought New York-based dancer Paul Matteson full circle this year. In 1996, representing Middlebury College in Vermont, Matteson won the award for out standing student choreographer, which he credits with catapulting him into a professional career that was decorated, in 2002, with a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award. For the 2004 Festival, he was back on the program as Middlebury's guest choreographer for an ensemble piece, As You Are.

Middlebury's Andrea Olsen, Matteson's first teacher, remembers him as a delightful, charismatic dancer devoted to choreography. "His work for the 1996 Festival was a very well-formed duet," she recalls, "a combination of dynamic energy and classical elegance." But Matteson thought lie was too old (19) and stiff when he showed up for her class, and he's still insecure about his lack of earlier training.

"I have to 're-remember' that I'm not good enough to be dancing," he says--never mind the Bessie that singled him out. "I imagine people seeing me in a ballet class arm shaking their heads."

Matteson left Middlebury in spring of 1996 to dance with Terry Creach aim returned to graduate in 2000. He chalks his ACDFA success up to "total beginner's luck." But, he says, "It gave me a confidence to continue choreographing. I am always working on some kind of creative project, and it began, with that duet."