Alyssa Pallotti: Public Relations & Journalism Student

It is a bittersweet truth, but Gina and I have officially completed our capping project: MCDE Behind the Curtain Campaign. We wrote our final thank you piece to all of our followers and even presented our work to our entire capping class and our professor. I am happy to say that they responded extremely well to the work we have done thus far, and after receiving feedback from my PR Writing professor who also popped in to view our presentation, I feel confident that we did an excellent job launching the project. However, she gave us some valuable suggestions for the future (and there will be one) to make the campaign even more interactive and fun for the audience, such as creating playlists for each choreographer and using video (possible collaboration with MCTV in the future?).

We plan to make the blog/facebook regularly integrated into the ensemble. We may not write full length articles next semester (maybe a more bulletpointed profile of each choreographer), but we plan to keep it just as fun and informative. We may add the media my professor suggested, which will be even better once we have people to work on it with us. How, you may ask? People from the club have expressed interest in participating in the campaign, and we hope we can transition some people into it for next semester to help us out! After that, we can designate someone to continue the tradition since we’ll be graduating.

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in Gina or a more enjoyable project to work on. Dance is one of my greatest passions, and so integrating it into my future career was a dream come true.

Hello all! As you know, the dance show took place on Nov. 17 and 18. It went amazingly, and MCDE sold over 1,000 tickets, which is unheard of in the fall. Gina and I feel like our advertising and publicity for the show may have helped a little– or at least we hope! We had a display board featuring pictures from each article we wrote, a quote from each article, and even QR codes that people could scan on their smart phones. The codes linked them directly to our FB page, Pinterest, and our blog!

After the show, we got a couple more likes on our FB page and hit over 4,000 views, which was unbelievably rewarding. With few events left for MCDE this semester, we may not have many more detailed blog posts, but I think we’ve done well so far. We have approximately 30 written pieces and photo albums in total. Each of our boards on Pinterest has approximately 100-300 pins, and our Facebook remains a hub for people to visit and keep updated on the ensemble’s work.

I also interviewed MCDE’s president and a couple of audience members and wrote a piece about the show that received quite a few views! I loved being able to show everyone the hard work the ensemble put into the show through the written word, which is how I best express myself.

Gina and I were given a special thank you at the show during intermission, and we have been approached by EsPResso, the Marist PRSSA magazine. The magazine interviewed us about our work on the project, our inspiration, and tips for future capping projects. It feels great to know that we have impressed people enough to be exemplified as an ideal capping project. I can’t wait for people to read the piece– especially future capping students so they can get some advice!

As of now, our main focus is preparing for our capping presentation next week. We are going on Tuesday and can’t wait to show our class what we’ve done!

It’s Sat., Nov. 17, and MCDE has completed its first run through of its show– Dancing ‘Til the World Ends. Instead of writing articles this week, we focused on taking pictures and documenting the behind the scenes work that goes into the week before the show. Since Gina and I are a part of the show ourselves (and I’m on the Executive Board!), we were extremely busy but were able to keep our social media running and post photos that we both took during our 9pm-12:30pm rehearsals every night!

We also had the time to create a display board for the show. It consists of pictures from each article, quotes from each article, a description of our project, and even QR codes that link people directly to our blog, Facebook, and Pinterest when they scan them with their smart phones! People were stopping by and reading it, and we got some additional views from the scanning, which I am really pleased about!

Kelsey O’Brien, our MCDE Website Manager,  used many of our photos from the blog throughout the semester in a slideshow for the audience to enjoy before the show, and the president of the club, Erin Graetzer, even gave us a special thank you in her intermission speech!

Right now, we are at about 3,900 views, and our goal is to hit 4,000 by the end of this weekend and maybe 5,000 by the end of the project, but that may be a stretch! In the coming weeks, we plan to review the show, have a couple more features, and cover some more charity/ community service.  Keep an eye out for a more detailed post about our progress once the pressure of the show lets up! Thanks for reading!

This week, Gina and I officially posted the final featured choreographer post, which received over a hundred views and pushed us over the 3,500 views mark on our blog overall! We are hoping to end up with between 4,000 and 5,000 views by the end of the semester.

The show is just a week away (Nov. 17 and 18 at Poughkeepsie High School), and we are preparing to showcase a lot of our work at the show for the dancers, parents, family members, and friends that all come to watch the Marist College Dance Ensemble (MCDE) members perform. We printed photos from each event and choreographer’s classes yesterday at CVS and compiled a list of quotes from each article to post beneath the photos on a board in the lobby.

Besides displaying pictures and quotes, we’ve decided to create bar codes that people can scan on their phones, which will link them to our Facebook, Pinterest, and also directly to the blog on the board. We will also provide written links below the codes so those without smart phones can still access the articles and social media sites if they wish.

We’re also going to include a blurb about the work we’ve done, the purpose of the project, and probably pictures of Gina and I so they know who we are and can ask us questions or chat with us if they see us around the lobby before the show and during intermission. We’re really hoping that this big event will help really boost our views and recognition! The Website Manager for MCDE also requested to use our photos in the slideshow they play before the show starts, which is amazing!

Finally, Meredith Lowe, PR Manager for PRSSA, has asked to interview Gina and I for a feature in EsPResso, the PRSSA magazine about our project and social media campaign. I’m really excited that people have been following our work and  hope it continues through the end of the semester!

Well, our capping project is progressing amazingly. We are just two weeks away from MCDE’s big show: Dancing ‘Til the World Ends Nov. 17 and 18 at Poughkeepsie High School. We have covered every choreographer who has a dance number in the show and have given an in depth preview of what the audience will see. This has never been done before, and we are really looking forward to seeing all the dances we’ve written about come together on stage.

This week, we only posted one choreographer and have had another piece on deck for this coming week. Sam Cillo, a contemporary dancer, will be our last featured choreographer, and we  plan to post it on Mon. or Tues. In the last week before the show, also known as Hell Week, we plan to document the goings on of all the rehearsals through pictures, quotes, and possibly a written piece. We may also feature Bill Scala, a photographer who always comes to the show and takes beautiful pictures.
We are really pleased with the process of the project so far, and we can’t wait to document the finale, the actual dance showcase! Hope to see you t here!

This week, Gina and I focused on covering the “Dancing to End Dating Violence” Dance-a-thon on Oct. 20. We both attended the event, interviewed attendees and MCDE/Heart1 members, and took photos of the festivities. I wrote the piece, while Gina provided most of the photos. We have received great feedback from Heart1 about the piece, and they were very grateful to be included on our blog since they worked with MCDE on the event.

We also interviewed more choreographers and attended their classes to take photos. We have officially interviewed all of the show’s choreographers with 3 weeks left until the big show! We have saved two pieces to post next week, and the weeks leading up to the show will be filled with other pieces documenting community service events and possibly interviews of MCDE’s faculty advisors and Bill Scala, a photographer who attends the shows.

Our Pinterest has been generating great (p)interest as well! We have been complimented by many people outside of MCDE who love following our food, quotes, and dance picture posts. It’s great to know we’re reaching people outside those immediately involved in the club!

We have secured 3/4 outside assessors for our project and are just waiting on a confirmation email from the 4th to have that complete as well. We are on the right track and are really looking forward to the show on Nov. 17 and 18. We are thinking of displaying our work in the lobby of the performances, but we will let you know what ends up happening with that! Thanks for reading!