Dancing Again

A few weeks ago I found myself back on the stage for a performance and it was great!

To The Pointe had been invited to participate in an evening of ekphrastic art; ekphrastic meaning multiple art forms coming together in order to relate more effectively to an audience.

Back in the spring visual artists painted or photographed their art. This summer these works of art were given to poets who wrote a poem for each artwork. This fall, To The Pointe selected three of those pairings (there were about eight to choose from) and we choreographed a dance for each pairing.

It was quite the undertaking, but a great one. In just five weeks time we choreographed dances, polished dances, found music, cut music, found costumes, came up with titles, wrote bios, and hopped on the stage. It was a crazy five weeks of my life, but I did have a lot of fun.

I collaborated with Nina, the director of the studio, and Beth and Ginger, two other teachers at To The Pointe. Most of our rehearsals were during the day, so I would just drag Marshall and Bridget along for the fun. They were champs, sometimes hanging out in the studio for four hours!

The first dance we performed was called "Dawn's Embrace". Ginger choreographed it and it was beautiful and quite possibly my most favorite dance I have ever learned. Ginger danced in it as well as Beth and I. Love those ladies.

I choreographed the second piece that was performed. It was called "Millinery Muse" and was based on a photograph of an old straw hat in an antique store window. I chose to dance in it and asked a student from To The Pointe to join me. I was the mannequin who was wearing the hat, and Margaret was the young girl who finds the hat and imagines herself dancing the night away. Margaret was so great to work with and she is a beautiful dancer; she did an excellent job!

The third and final piece we performed was called "Buzzz!!!" and it was SO much fun! Beth choreographed it and all four of us performed in it. Beth did an excellent job and we all had a ball. A local guitarist composed the music we used and he played live for us for the performance. It was awesome and so invigorating to dance to live music; I haven't done that since BYU!

It was a great evening, but also so fleeting. It is always amazing to me how much energy goes into preparing for a performance, and then once the performance begins it is over and done with in such a short while. We plan to perform these three dances in the spring recital in May, so that will give us one more chance to share what we have created and then hopefully we will be invited to work with this great group of artists again next year!