My Reflections and Impressions on Being in a Second Company and Leaving Part of my Heart There With What is "I Am"...
Last season, I was in the Pennsylvania Ballet’s second company which brought tons of incredible opportunities to me! We performed in front of many inspiring audiences, mostly students who don't quite get the exposure to ballet that they could. Their fascination with the performance was clear and they (hopefully) took this new knowledge of the art away from the performance to tell their friends and family all about it and even participate or see more performances. In fact, later in the season when we were finishing up our wave of outreach shows, PBII was sent many thank you letters from the students where they expressed their enjoyment for our performances and asked us lots of questions. It felt so good to know what kind of a footprint we left and how our performances made an impact. We also got to work with a few new and upcoming choreographers, and of course, had the pleasure to be included in the large Main Company productions like Cinderella, The Nutcracker and Le Corsaire. But, there was one experience that is truly special and completely unforgettable, as it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for a group of young people like PBII…
The Philadelphia Art Reach Organization approached the Pennsylvania Ballet with the mission to connect students with disabilities with real professional ballet dancers. Art Reach Philadelphia requested St. Katherine’s Day School and Pennsylvania Ballet II to collaborate and work together over a 10 week period to choreograph and perform a piece for FringeArts in Philadelphia. We accepted the offer with excitement, curiosity, and optimism as it was going to be new for everyone, but both ends of the project were up for a fun challenge. Soon, we received news that the project would be made into a documentary film. A film crew would follow us every step of the way through rehearsals, the performance and any out-of-studio interactions. At that point, I knew it was going to be so special!
We wanted the first interaction with the students to be as normal as possible. The most important thing was for us to be able to trust each other in order to work together and have chemistry onstage. We all sat in a circle over lunch at Pennsylvania Ballet. One by one, we introduced each other and discussed some personal facts like favorite foods, movies, hobbies, pets, etc. We could tell the St. Katherine’s students were shy at first; I can imagine they must have felt intimidated from being in such an intense, hard working environment. It could have also been the film crew surrounding us. Jessica Kilpatrick, our choreographer for the project, who is a faculty member at the School of Pennsylvania Ballet, took the students into the studios and taught a brief class to see how they reacted and moved to the music.
Rehearsing was surprisingly stress free and we all had tons of fun creating something amazing for the world to see. Each week, we looked forward to our performance more and more, with many emotions. The students seemed to let loose week by week and they started adapting to the choreography and to us dancers, as well. After about eight weeks of rehearsals, the crew scheduled interviews with the students and PBII. Since the film is called “I Am”, which is also the title of the piece we were performing, we all were asked to fill in the blanks… “I Am…I Can…I Will…”. We were told the blanks could be anything; it could even be “I am hungry” even though I’m pretty sure the point of it was meant to be a little deeper than that. The film director asked us most of the questions, many of them having to do with our emotions throughout the process, our opinions on the kids, how we were challenged, etc. PBII was able to witness the students answering their questions. To say the least, their responses were truly touching. Each of them expressed their friendship with us, the fun they were having in the studios which included some of our funny inside jokes, and how much they have enjoyed working with us. After those interviews, our friendships became much stronger because then we knew how much we were actually affecting these kids and how special our once-a-week interactions were to them. Of course, we were also realizing how precious and important they were to us.
And just like that, it was already time to perform. This was also a special performance because it was our last show of the season and we had the honor to share the stage with our new found best friends. Our goal was met: for us, the dancers to share the one unexplainable feeling of the stage with them and I will never forget the happiness on everyone’s faces. The joy was bittersweet. While we spent doing what we loved with a group of kids whom we loved, it was over far too quickly. After the performance, we had to say our goodbyes. We knew we’d see each other again someday, but it was still hard to kiss goodbye to our weekly meet ups.
Now, four months later, the film has finally been completed and is ready for screening. On September 19th at the Prince Theater, “I Am” will premiere and we will all reunite and share such a memorable and jubilant time with our Philly audience. I was asked to to be a part of a Q&A panel after the show where we will share some inside facts with the audience. I thought this could be a special September “Monthly Riff” for the blog, so today's entry will be Part One. Part Two will have my Q&A included and I will talk all about my thoughts and feelings about the finished product. Below, is a sneak peek trailer of our project and a few of my favorite photos during our time together:
