My Senior Project

Well, so long dance major I've finished my senior project and I'm outta there. I was nervous about it, but I ended up really enjoying the overall experience. I've never considered myself a "choreographer." I love performing and I've always preferred being on a warm, energy filled stage than being the one leading the rehearsals and biting my nails in the audience during the performance. I was lucky enough to have five top notch dancers by my side though, so it was actually really relaxing to be in the audience just watching and enjoying the show. I trusted them and knew that they would be flawless.

I choreographed a piece called "Seen and Unseen" inspired by a talk given in the LDS General Conference by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland entitled, "The Ministry of Angels." He gave the talk in the fall of 2008 and it has stuck with me ever since. His talk along with personal experience and experiences of others drove the dance. There are some nit-picky things that I would probably change if I reset it, and it wasn't by any means brilliant choreography or anything, but I was really pleased with the outcome and I'm glad that I had the experience. I'm not allowed to post a video of the final product in the show because of copyright laws, but I have a few of my own clips that I can show. It's not perfect or anything, but I have some family that requested seeing it so these will give you a taste of what it was. Keep in mind that videos are never as good as seeing it in concert because you can't capture the emotion and that these are just of one stage rehearsal and normal studio rehearsals, so the dancers were still getting it down too.

This is part of the first half (my camera ran out of space!):

And here is part of the second half:

And the last part of the second half:

And some pictures for memories sake:

Now you've got a taste of what my senior project was! The lead girl was actually wearing some netting over her eyes in the real thing to appear as though she was blindfolded. It's not until the end of the piece that she realizes that someone has been there helping her through her life that she takes the blindfold off, but by then the angel has just barely left the stage. She can't see who it was, but she knows she was there, helping her through the trials that came her way.

These videos can't capture the reality of such an experience in one's own life but I know that help is always there, we just might not realize it right away.