SUNY Oneonta’s Terps Dance Troupe Celebrates Broadway, Honors Late Member in Fall Performance

By JAQUELYN CARLO
SUNY Institute for Local News
ONEONTA

The Terpsichorean Dance Company, more commonly known as “Terps,” is one of SUNY Oneonta’s most popular student organizations, with over a hundred active members. And their biannual end-of-semester dance shows are always among the university’s top cultural events of the year, with tickets routinely selling out and family and friends traveling from all over the state to attend.

This fall semester, the student-run dance company is putting on a “Terps on Broadway”-themed performance for three nights: Thursday, December 4 and Friday, December 5, both at 7 p.m., and Saturday, December 6 at 5 p.m. The shows are held in the Goodrich Theater in the Fine Arts Center.

Every Terps show is an opportunity for SUNY Oneonta students to come together to choregraph their own original dances, as well as to show off their individual talents to their peers and the community.

For this year’s “Terps on Broadway” show, each class is performing a separate dance related to a musical on Broadway.

Senior Maya Johnson has been dancing for 20 years, nearly her entire life. She was elected to the role of Terps president last year. Johnson said that each class is a different character based on the theme each semester. This fall 2025 semester, the first-year students are “Annie,” the sophomores are “West Side Story,” the juniors are “Mean Girls,” and the seniors are “Chicago.” The executive board, or “e-board,” members get a special spotlight as the “Wicked” characters.

Terps productions are a true collaborative effort. The six-member executive board and their huge roster of dancers come together at the start of each semester to pick out that season’s theme. A form is sent out to the members of the dance company to brainstorm themes for the next show. Once the company’s leadership has gone through all the ideas submitted, they choose the theme. They then hold public tryouts for the company, after which they spend the entire semester, nearly a full three months, rehearsing and preparing for semester-ending big show.  

Established in 1975, Terps is among the longest-running cultural traditions on the SUNY Oneonta campus. Their styles of dance range from the traditional—tap, jazz, lyrical—to the more modern and avant-garde—hip-hop, African, contemporary. The dance company is supported through the Oneonta Student Association.

In preparation for “Terps on Broadway,” the dancers held their first meeting in late August and began practicing in early September, shortly after students returned to campus.

Senior Julia DelPozzo said, “The first week of school we have our interest meeting and then from there auditions start.”

DelPozzo voiced her excitement about performing and getting to be with her friends. The dance team has popular traditions they hold before performing on stage.

“We get in a little circle and all hold hands, and we squeeze our hands around the circle,” DelPozzo said.

Terps Publicist and fellow senior Isabella Galan, who has been a dancer since she was only 2 years old, has been a Terps member since her sophomore year.

“Personally, I have always been a dancer and a theater kid, so getting to perform in a new space with different people that come from different places is honestly really special,” Galan said, then added, “because personally I think as a dancer you learn so much from the dancers around you. It’s really cool to pick up on little things from all around—mostly New York but [also] all around the United States.”

Galan said that a hallmark of Terps is “people coming from everywhere to dance here and be on the same stage.”

Always a monumental occasion, this fall’s Terps show will celebrate the life of Emily Finn, the SUNY Oneonta first-year student who was tragically killed in a dating violence incident last week while at home on Long Island during the Thanksgiving holiday. Finn was a new member of Terps. A social media post on the Terps Instagram account described Finn as “a light in the room… an incredibly talented dancer, and an even better friend.”

The dance company members also said in the post: “We are devastated to lose such a vital piece of our show and such an amazing human being.” They added, “Her kind soul will live on in the hearts she touched, and we are so thankful we got to dance with her. We will continue to dance for Emily always.”

Ribbons will be worn honoring Emily Finn at this week’s performances.

“Terps on Broadway” will be performed once-daily on December 4, December 5, and December 6 in SUNY Oneonta’s Goodrich Theater. Tickets can be purchased online through the SUNY Oneonta Ticket Office website, https://oneonta.universitytickets.com/, or in-person in the Hunt College Union.

This story was created by student reporters through the OnNY Community Media Service, a program of SUNY Oneonta and the SUNY Institute for Local News.