Student dancers perform personal choreography

Ballet dancers let their hair loose as they stepped into the role of choreographer for “Ballet at the BCT: The Choreography Project” on Tuesday. 

As people ran away from the rain into the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, dancers were backstage putting on the finishing touches to their costumes and makeup and warming up before going on. While performers were backstage,  dancers turned choreographers were sitting in the audience waiting to see their piece come to life.

“I think it’s really good to know how we think about movement,” sophomore and choreographer Miriam-Rose LeDuc said. “It’s good to step out of the box of
dancer and expand ourselves.”

While some choreographers were more relaxed, others were nervous.

“When I’m the choreographer, I’m the one speaking,” sophomore Grace Hellweg said. “I’m telling the dancers what to say and having them speak through my choreography. I get more nervous for people to see my choreography than when I dance because my choreography says a lot about me.”

Other choreographers had the same feeling of nerves. For them, the choreography of a dancer shows their story and makes them vulnerable, Hellweg said.

However, dance is a collaborative art, and while some choreographers may have a vision, sometimes dancers incorporate the language of the choreographer
differently through their bodies.

“I choose not to tell my dancers what I’m saying through my dance and try to play with it,” Hellweg said. “The dancers allow the movement to tell their own story. You create something you didn’t plan on in rehearsal.”

The choreographers were in charge of finding the costumes and picking the lighting cues and music for each piece. The choreographers had three weeks to rehearse their dances because of their intense schedules, Hellweg said.

“Every year the show has gotten better and better,” said Violette Verdy, distinguished ballet professor and former Balanchine dancer. “Because our kids have been exposed to so many things, their imaginations are well-developed.”

Every ballet major is required to do two choreography projects before they graduate as a part of the curriculum. 

“When you do intense ballet at the high level, you can do anything,” Verdy said. “Ballet is architectural, not just movement. It is architectural because we do it in space.”

For the ballet dancers, ballet isn’t simply a form of movement, but a craft as well. Students become well-rounded artists and nourish their intellect and hearts, Verdy said.
“The academics are the intellect and dance, which is the music, is the heart,” Verdy said. “If you just have the mind, it’s dry, and if you just have the heart, it can be disastrous. You need to have a combination of both.”

As lights went down, two dancers appeared on stage.

The man wore a fedora hat, while the woman donned a black gemstone jacket. Both snapped their fingers with their glittery gloves, and unexpectedly the song “Come Together,” a Beatles cover sung by Michael Jackson, started blaring while the dancers moved with style, funk and strength, showing the ballet dancers’ fun side.

“I expected to see a lot more traditional ballet,” senior Gina Ricci said. “I appreciate that they have so much variety and more modern dance. It’s very entertaining.”

The show also had traditional pieces of classical and contemporary ballet. Some fused ballet with contemporary music, and others used the traditional classical music and classical dance. The choreographers told stories about love, death, friendship, sex and fun. There will be another performance at 7:30 p.m. this evening.

“In spite of the difficulties, they have the magic formula which opens many doors in life, not just dance,” Verdy said. “Dance is really civilization.”