Student performers showed off their semester’s worth of practice on-stage to audiences at Dancers Unlimited’s Fall 2025 Showcase on Dec. 5 and 6, at the Doña Ana Community College East Mesa campus. The dancers performed 20 different songs from various eras, genres, and artists.
Dancers Unlimited (DU) was first established at New Mexico State University in 1985. According to its mission statement on Crimson Connection, the club’s main purposes are to provide support for all performing arts, mediate between different local dance groups and anyone interested in dance, and to educate and promote dance in the NMSU and Las Cruces community. Dancers Unlimited is run by NMSU students and alumni.
One of the club’s dancers, senior Atlee Musgrave, has been with Dancers Unlimited since his first year at NMSU. Musgrave’s time with his fellow dancers, as well as a long history of dancing in his life, helped him become confident in the showcase.
“I’ve been performing since I was little,” Musgrave said. “It has always been something that’s a part of me. Especially tonight, it was about having fun and connecting as a dancer. I am a senior, so this is one of the last times I will get to do this. So, everything about it honestly just feels free. I have been a part of DU for almost seven semesters now, so at this point I kind of have a rhythm down; it’s gotten easier throughout the years. As long as I get to just see people fall in love with dance, that’s the best part about it.”
For other dancers, the Fall 2025 showcase was one of their first experiences performing for a public audience. Dancer Amalia Tenorio said this was her first semester being a member of the club.
“It is a little difficult; you know, tiring,” Tenorio said. “But it is like a sport, yeah? In some ways, it’s been pretty easy, because I’ve been dancing for a while. So, it’s an environment I’m used to having. I originally went to a local studio in Socorro called Rising Stars Dance Studio. And then for high school, I was also in the dance team for all four years.”
Dancer and alumni Danae Guerrero described the road towards their showcase that her team undertook during the semester.
“Every semester, we start with auditions, and afterwards we have our first meeting where we set up the practices that we’re going to have,” Guerrero said. “We as dancers decide ‘oh, I want to be in this dance.’ We have meetings on Monday, but dancers can choose to practice on other days too. Say, I want to go to practice on Tuesday from eight or nine. And then we have our showings, when we show half of the dance and half of our dancers. Then we have adjudications, where we have a panel of judges that determine if our dances are ready for the showcase.”
Guerro said that performances like Dancers Unlimited’s Fall 2025 Showcase help the local community bond over an art form not discussed as much as others.
“It’s really engaging to the community,” Guerrero said. “So that way we can connect, even if some people are not really into dancing, we can make them think ‘oh, I really like this style of dance. I really like this song actually.’ So, I feel like that’s a way to connect with the people.”
