The AACC Dance Company is getting ready for its "Spring Migration" show, the annual rite of spring for the Dance Company.

This year's version takes flight at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Pascal Center for Performing Arts.

The group worked on one dance with instructor Lynda Plavin Fitzgerald, the college's dance company director.

Part of the quick choreography required them to lie on the floor, bend their legs over their heads to resemble a flattened "C," flutter their feet, jump upright and pretend that being a human pretzel is normal.

If she had buttons on her leotard, Lynda would be busting them. Twenty-one student members of the company recently returned from the American College Dance Festival Northwest Conference in Salt Lake City.

"Out of 33 schools and 450 students, we were the only East Coast school there," she noted. "Our company performed two pieces that were adjudicated." One, "Epic Love" is a duet choreographed by Leah Smearman and Anwar Thomas of Mitchellville, Prince George's County. It was performed in the group's fall 2007 show, she said.

The second was a piece Lynda choreographed called "No Bones About It." It is the dance that opens Spring Migration next week, she said.

"We got outstanding feedback by the professional judges. My mouth was on the floor. They really performed well!"

Like a momma hen, she pulled out photos of the group all wearing the identical royal-blue hoodie sweatshirts at the Salt Lake City International Airport. The sweatshirts had the AACC logo on the front and the dancer's name emblazed on the back.

Her sweatshirt was different. On the back it read: "Return any missing AACC dancers HERE."

"Dressing them all alike certainly helped keep track of them in the airport," she laughed.

Sitting out the next bit of choreography were three members of the troupe: Tori Skurow, 20, of Millersville, a 2006 Severna Park High graduate; 21-year-old Andre Hinds of Glen Burnie, a 2005 grad of Old Mill High; and Davidsonville resident Kristy House, 20, a member of South River High's Class of 2006.

"I'm choreographing two pieces for 'Spring Migration'," noted Andre, who, at 6 foot 3 inches and 155 pounds, is all long, lanky bones and muscle and not even a whisper of fat. He will appear in 10 of the dances.

"One is a group piece for the company and the other is a playful duet with Kelsey Sherbridge," he said.

Looking down over a body that, at rest, looks like a collapsed string puppet, he laughed. "I'm just starting to get used to my body. I've only been dancing since I was 18. I played basketball as a kid, but my heart wasn't in it."

Tori will appear in nine numbers. She ticked off all the hours Dance Company members rehearse together and separately.

"We rehearse every Tuesday and Thursday before our group rehearsal, which runs from 3-5:15 p.m. Next week, the company goes into tech rehearsals Monday through Thursday from 3-6:30 p.m., plus we have to put in a lot of extra time to polish individual pieces."

With the choreography of nine dances, plus a few from her past, circulating in her head, Tori admits "Certain moves will remind me of other dances." She has been dancing since she was 3 years old.

To prevent herself from performing a chunk of the wrong footwork, she "puts that thought aside and focuses on the dance."

"It's an outlet," she said. "It's something I enjoy doing. When I'm under stress, it makes me feel better. I can push the work and stress away."

Ms. House is rehearsing her part in 10 dances.

"All the dances are hard this time," she smiled. "The hardest to remember is the duet I helped choreograph." The other dancers laughed and rolled their eyes.

"When I'm going over it, I'm trying to make it different from the other dances," she continued, ignoring their playful insults. "It's a contemporary, lyrical piece set to the song 'Dialog' by Rosie Thomas."

"I've been dancing since I was three, too."

"I didn't get that memo," quipped Mr. Hinds.

Arnold resident Leah Smearman, 27, plopped into the conversation. She's another dancer who began at age 3, and is a longtime, regular Dance Company member. She is a member of Severna Park High's Class of '98.

"I'm an adult, I have to work," she grumped to her friends. When she's not in class or rehearsing, Leah waits tables at the Severn Inn and teaches ballet classes at Cato Center for the Performing Arts in Severna Park.

She will appear in seven Spring Migration dances.

Pulling herself up to her full stature of 4 feet and 9 1/2 inches, Leah announced that she had grown enough so that, under Maryland law, she no longer had to ride in a booster seat. It rankles her, though, that with her dewy, freckled skin and girlish figure, she's constantly mistaken for a 14-year-old instead of the ancient nearly-30-something that she is.

(If she could bottle her youthful looks, I'm sure there would be lines around the block.)

Tickets to Spring Migration are $15 for the general public, $7 for AACC students, $10 for AACC faculty and staff and kids under 10. For more information, call 410-777-7021.

----

Wendi Winters is a freelance writer living on the Broadneck Peninsula.