Stephanie Haymore and Professor Shani Robison, Dance Department

I was excited to work on my project and create my choreography. I studied out the music and broke it down into counts. I found the different accents of each phrase. I made choices as to where I would follow the music and where I would go against the music. I had to be careful and watch how the music and movement were relating. It would have been easy to choreograph movement that paralleled the music. It would have been comfortable to use movement that I already knew and had used and performed before. I was challenged and had to work hard for every count and for every movement I created. Working with contemporary ballet gave me the opportunity to create my own movement that fit to my music and ideas. I was able to give depth to the music with my own movement.

I began setting my choreography on members of the BYU Ballet Showcase. After a few rehearsals, my dancers were ready to audition the first part of my choreography. My choreography was auditioning to be performed in the BYU Ballet Showcase performance in November 2005. After the audition, the artistic director’s of BYU’s Theatre Ballet Company and Ballet Showcase Company met with me to discuss my choreography and the audition. During this meeting Jan Djikwel, artistic director of Theatre Ballet, asked me to set my choreography on Theatre Ballet. He wanted it to be performed in their February concert, Ballet in Concert. This is a great honor. My choreography would be the first student choreography to be performed in Ballet in Concert. I finished my choreography and began rehearsing with the BYU Theatre Ballet Company. Working with this company gave me experience that I had not foreseen with the proposal of this project. Being a member of BYU’s Ballet Showcase myself, I was teaching and directing a ballet company higher than my own. I learned how to earn respect from the dancers while showing humility. I learned how to be effective in rehearsals. I not only taught the girls the movement, I taught them to hear and understand the music the way I did. This was very difficult. I spent many hours teaching the dancers the relationship between the music and movement. The dancers needed to have the music in their bodies to perform the desired relationship.

I learned how to work with a director of another company. I had to please the director while staying true to my own ideas and vision. I was very uneasy teaching his dancers choreography he had not yet seen. Many times I wondered if I wasn’t qualified and should be choreographing what I thought he would choreograph. I gained my courage and went on with my vision. He praised the choreography and was happy with the final piece.

My choreography was performed in Theatre Ballet’s February performance, Ballet in Concert. It also was performed in Irvine, California while both BYU ballet companies were on tour. It was very rewarding to see my hard work on stage. I felt like I was watching the music when ever my choreography was performed.

With the help of the BYU Mentoring ORCA Grant, I was able to choreograph a successful dance. I gained experience needed to continue choreographing after my graduation. I will have more opportunities opened to me because of this experience. This project is a memorable experience of my time at Brigham Young University.