Ballet project meets Buskirk

“Ballet at the BCT: The Choreography Project” opens at 7 p.m. today at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater and will also run Wednesday. The show is free and open to the public.

As the dancers gathered at the edge of the stage to receive notes, the young choreographer approached the stage.

She wasn’t the choreographer the ballet students were used to. Instead, she was one of their peers. The piece was sophomore Alison Koroly’s choreographic project.

“We are required to choreograph twice before we graduate,” Koroly said.
As the dancers approached their choreographer, other dancers warmed up to go onstage next. People were going in and out as each group rehearsed its piece.

Instead of the one-set ballets some are used to at the Musical Arts Center, the BCT program will have a variety of different pieces and is not restricted to classical ballet.

“There is this big mix this year,” Koroly said. “Everything is diverse. We have choreographers doing contemporary ballet to jazz to classical ballet. My piece is set to Michael Jackson music.”

The dancers at the ballet department train in a variety of disciplines outside of ballet, including jazz, contemporary and modern. The choreographers’ projects give them the opportunity to incorporate their own movements and preferences of music into dance, senior and choreographer Brette Benedict said.

“It’s fun to see you’re able to put your movement into others dancers’ bodies,” Benedict said. “Sometimes it’s even better than you imagined because the dancers look so much cooler than what you envisioned. But sometimes it can be a big disadvantage and challenge to explain how to execute your vision.”

As the dancers walked off stage, they were attentive and happy to take the notes and choreography of their peers.

“It’s cool to see how professional the choreographers get,” freshman and dancer Colleen Kerwin said.

“You don’t just see them as your fellow classmate. Seeing the preview of the entire show yesterday was also an eye opener. It’s interesting to see how different everybody is. You can look at a piece and see the choreographer in it. You look back and say,
‘That is so Brette.’”

The dancers left to take a dinner break, but they would be back. They had to finish rehearsing each piece and run the entire show.

“This is great because as a dancer you get two more shows,” Kerwin said. “Plus you get more rehearsal time, which means more dancing.”