University of Iowa Dance MFA candidate Emily Culbreath and her cast have been selected to represent the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Central Conference at the 2025 National College Dance Festival at Georgetown University’s Royden B. Davis Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C., May 2-4, 2025. Selections were made at the Central Conference in Norman, Oklahoma, earlier this spring.

The national festival serves as a prestigious platform for outstanding student and faculty choreography, bringing together performances selected from ACDA’s regional conferences across the country. It’s an annual opportunity for emerging artists to showcase their work at a national level, engage with peers and professionals, and celebrate the depth and diversity of dance programs across the country. 

Culbreath’s piece, Plan A: Stories of Embodied Frontiers, received strong recognition from the ACDA adjudicators for its fresh and creative approach to exploring social and theatrical themes. The piece showcases five dance artists who explore their intersectional experiences through Hip Hop dance, voice, text, physical theater, and personal storytelling. Embracing choreo-activism, the performers collaboratively confront crucial topics related to the body, including contraception, abortion, and family planning.

Culbreath explained the creative process saying, “The inspiration for this work was conceived from my experiences as a student in University of Iowa courses—Performing Autobiography, led by Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, and Contraception Across Time and Cultures, led by Professor Waltraud Maierhofer in Global Health Studies. But more than that, it was crafted from the dancers and my personal, deeply felt encounters with contraceptive technologies.” 

Plan A was the only project in the Central Conference that utilized Hip Hop dance forms for storytelling.

“The approval of Plan A for the ACDA National Conference highlights how the uniting of Hip Hop, autobiographical storytelling, and performance can offer new perspectives for critical discussions surrounding important social issues,” Culbreath said. 

In addition to Culbreath’s achievement, Mikey Rioux, also a second-year MFA candidate, and their cast were named as a second alternate by the ACDA Central Conference adjudicators for their piece, Mystic Sister. Rioux’s work was praised for its “seamless interweaving” and the “care and intimacy” with which it explores themes of connection and ritual. 

“Mystic Sister is a meditation on grief and collective healing, Rioux said. “The weekly rehearsal process felt like a bright light in dark times. We came together and talked, wrote, drew, and danced about the things we were carrying, individually and collectively.”

They added, “Being selected is an affirmation of the invaluable work of all the amazing artists that contributed to creating Mystic Sister, and of the vital role that art plays in the creation of our communal reality.”

Culbreath recalls that McMillan, Associate Professor in Dance and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, once told her that “Humanity is shaped through the sharing of stories.”

She adds, “This is why we wanted to be artists in the first place.”