The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
SHAPING ‘WHAT’S YOUR WHY?’ GIG
Dancers, students prepare to share stage in original ballet production
New dancers are now part of the show when North Pointe Ballet stages an encore of an original production in Lorain next month.
The North Ridgeville based troupe has adopted the Lorain Palace Theater, 617 Broadway, as its home stage.
The theater will host “What’s Your Why?” a blend of contemporary dance, personal stories and classical ballet, on March 14 and 15.
The North Pointe Ballet dancers will be joined by students of Spectrum Resource Center and School, 300 Broadway, Lorain.
Dance for all
The students and dancers met for the first time Feb. 19 when Artistic Director Janet Dziak, Assistant Director Melaina Kampf and instructor Elizabeth Radachi visited Spectrum’s new gymnasium for rehearsal with sixth graders at the school.
“Our mission is to make ballet accessible for everyone,” Kampf said.
“We want everyone to feel welcome, and I think that’s why we do as much as we can to make it accessible,” Radachi said.
"Our mission is to make ballet accessible for everyone." — Assistant Director Melaina Kampf
The company uses audience connections including narration, videos and meeting dancers after the performances.
People have used movement to express emotions and stories since the beginning of time, Radachi said.
As a foundational method of human communication, everyone should feel welcome to enjoy dancing or watching it, she said.
“And so it just seems so natural that we would use our bodies when we express ourselves,” Radachi said. “I think even if people haven’t ever been exposed to dance or feel that in some way they’re not qualified to dance, just doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s a natural part of our human movement and make-up.
“Dance is for everyone.”
Dance, dance, dance
“What’s Your Why?” will be a mixed repertoire in three acts, including an excerpt from “Swan Lake,” Radachi said.
Spectrum students will be part of the third act of “What’s Your Why?”
Although dance is a natural part of being human, practice makes perfect when staging a show, so the dancers introduced themselves and balletic concepts to the students.
The students in turn said their names, then added motions — claps, arms in the air, tapping feet or spinning in place.
Dancers explained the movements become their memory aids for names when they teach several hundred students a week.
Dziak showed them their sign language, hand signals to stand up quickly, quietly and with excellence, or to sit down on the floor the same way.
The ballerinas agreed slouching posture is never a good start for moving with music.
A warm-up was followed by two rounds of running leaps.
Then the students were ready for their new choreography, sets of moves set over six “chapters,” each one with eight beats of music.
“The Nutcracker” it was not.
Instead, the group jammed to Justin Timberlake’s hit “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”
Dziak added moves from the “Orange Justice” dance in popular video game Fortnite.
Although a few students were shy, most of them joined in with smiles and giggles.
Dziak and her colleagues encouraged the students to let their unique abilities shine through.
The students would reach up, turn, slide to the side and more.
“I can see a lot of you doing a phenomenal job,” Dziak told them.
Going on stage
The audience was made up of Tasha Bolyard, Spectrum operations director, and other instructors who also followed the dancers’ motions.
Going on stage at the Palace Theater is optional for the students.
Afterward, Bolyard said she would reach out to parents so they would encourage the students to participate.
“I’m excited to see how the kids did,” she said. “I thought for sure there would be way more that weren’t going to want anything to do with it because I have a lot of really shy, and anxiety is so high. It was cool, it was very great,” she said.
“They were wonderful,” Kampf said.