Members of the MSU Repertory Dance Company visited Bowling Green University last month to participate in the Northeast Regional festival of the American College Dance Festival.

And after a healthy dose of dance classes and workshops with professional choreographers, five MSU students were offered a chance to perform at a Gala Dance Concert, presented the last night of the four-day event.

The modern dance piece performed by the repertory dancers, “Birds in the Air,” is meant to convey a sense of womanhood and community through movement, which represents quilt-making.

“The dancers form positions that are representative of a wedding ring, a common quilt pattern,” said Dixie Durr, chair of the Department of Theatre. “It’s about having fun together, about seriousness of life and demonstrates the whole gamut of female relationships.”

Judges selected repertoire for the final concert on the basis of strong choreography and performance standards, Durr said.

And nine pieces were picked out of 40 for the concert.

Ann Arbor-based choreographer Whitley Setrakian based the piece on an Amish quilt exhibit she saw at a museum, and judges selected the piece as one of nine.

While some schools involved in the festival offer dance as a degree, MSU offers dance only as a specialization.

Rivka Levinsohn, a Lyman Briggs freshman, was one of the dancers who participated in the event.

“We got an ajudication on Sunday morning and performed in front of a panel of three judges,” she said. “It’s a piece we’ve been practicing since last October.”

Levinsohn began dancing her junior year in high school and has taken dance classes at Lansing Community College and now at MSU.

“We went with hopes that we would win, but more for the experience that we’d learn,” she said.