Dancers pursue artistic vision

Junior Stephanie Lampe stood amid her dancers, with all eyes on her. They tilted their heads as she demonstrated how they all should turn and sweep an arm to reach for a corner. "Release the head," she said, almost letting the top of her head face the floor.\nLampe is one of a group of IU ballet majors who will present their work at Ballet at the BCT: An Evening of New Choreographic Works at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.\n"It's a great opportunity to play around in the studio with ideas about movement and music," Lampe said of the workshop/performance. \nIn her piece, titled "Resonance," she explores how the music can be expressed in different ways. \n"I've been thinking a lot about how the same experience or event will affect different people in different ways," she explained.\nFor much of Lampe's piece, five dancers interweave and dart between each other, spinning, leaping or simply standing. Third-year senior Justin Zuschlag is a dancer in Lampe's piece. He smiled as he described her choreography. \n"It's very mathematical and logical, and sometimes difficult to execute," he said. \nLampe laughed at the sly reference to her double-major in math.\nSophomore Lauren Collier is also presenting her work in the workshop performance. The name of her piece, "Octus Feminis" aims to reflect the fact that her project includes all her fellow members of the class of 2008.\nIn rehearsal, Collier watched four women launch into leaps across the stage. \n"All this music is building into a big explosion," she said after another run-through. \nShe marked a leaping combination, thinking aloud to herself, "It needs an explosion, a run-run-boom."\nThe choreography for "Octus Feminis" is rooted in ballet technique, but Collier said she also draws heavily from modern dance. She had a vision of a journey in friendship for her four ballerinas. \n"The piece isn't too deep," she said. "Just about a band of friends that moves through life together, helping each other out at times, complementing one another to make life (the piece) better."\nFor most of the piece, the women dance in unison, but Collier also acknowledges the fragility of friendship.\n"Something unexpected happens," she said. "One has to be left alone. She is somewhat distraught, and then her friends come back again and help her out." \nSophomore Lucia Jimenez plays the lost friend. After a brief solo in which she frantically searches the edges of the stage, she finds her friends and they engage in a dramatic tug-of-war before joining hands in a circle. \nCollier said she appreciates learning from the challenges of being a choreographer. \n"Choreographing is a great learning tool for a young dancer," she said. "At first, it seems to be quite a daunting task. However, in the end, I always am pleasantly surprised by an expressive artwork that comes to life."\nThe Choreography Workshop is an annual student production that is free to the public at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Student choreographers choose their own music, recruit dancers, obtain costumes from the costume workshop and work on stage lighting with the stage crew. Meanwhile, dancers might voluntarily participate in upwards of five pieces for the workshop. \nDoricha Sales is a faculty member in the ballet department who has observed students grow through their participation in the annual Choreography Workshop. \n"I see definitely that some people have talent, and that these dancers are the next generation of great choreographers," she said.\nSales also noted that the workshop gives students a unique opportunity. \n"They get a chance to see the other side of dancing. They experience what our guest teachers and choreographers have to deal with ... the pressures of creating on a deadline," she said.\nLampe admitted the work is difficult sometimes, but very rewarding. \n"Sometimes the steps come easily, sometimes I agonize over four counts for days," she said. "It's definitely rewarding, though, to see all of your hard work on display"