A remodeled performance studio, black box renovations and a new dance honorary mark an exciting year of new beginnings for Hillsdale’s dance and theatre departments.
In addition, Director of Dance Holly Hobbs is implementing a new method of ballet instruction, the Tower Players are focusing on contemporary performances and nearly 50 students auditioned for the first show of the year.
Hobbs expressed her pleasure with the dance department’s new performance studio, which includes wall-to-wall sprung flooring, barres, cubbies and fresh coat of paint. Before, dance flooring only covered a portion of the floor, meaning students could easily “fall to their death” if they weren’t cautious. Now the entire floor is suitable for dancing with a foam core covered with a rubber surface called marley. Likewise, the black box that once had hard, splintering wood floors now has sprung flooring covered with maple squares and a new sound system for both dance and theatre performances.
Hobbs said these renovations allow for all dance classes – including highland and ballroom – to meet in the Sage Center for the Arts, instead of at the Roche Sports Complex.
“We are finally all united under one roof,” Hobbs added.
Hobbs also explained that the department joined the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, a national dance honorary which will requires artistic merit, leadership and academic achievement to bring dance students together.
“It will focus on the more social aspects of participating in dance,” Hobbs said.
In order to produce better, stronger and more efficient dancers, Hobbs attended a training seminar this summer for American Ballet Theatre. She said this method of learning and teaching ballet will fundamentally change the way she teaches, but for the better.
“It has a rigorous syllabus and a very specific way of training dancers specializing in efficiency of movement,” Hobbs said.
The Tower Dancers will perform on March 27 to 29, displaying both faculty and student choreographed works in modern and ballet genre. Auditions will be held on Sept. 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. in the performance studio and are open to all levels of dance expertise.
Additionally, she said students in her Choreography and Improvisation II course will perform group-choreographed dance in the black box for their final in December. The performance is open to the student body.
In the theatre department, the Tower Players will perform four shows – three plays and one musical – over the course of the year. Theatre Department Chair George Angell said the plays are all contemporary and the oldest one, “Misanthrope,” will have a contemporary slant.
The first play, “Almost, Maine,” will show Oct. 8 to 11. The play is a series of short vignettes of different couples at different stages of love, theatre publicity manager and senior Aaron Pomerantz said.
“They are discovering something about how they feel about each other,” Director Michel Bayer added. “It’s pure and simple.”
Although the show only requires four actors, two men and two women, it can include as many as 19. Bayer said almost 50 students auditioned, resulting in callbacks. Because of the tremendous showing, Bayer said, the cast is 19 students.
The other shows will include “The Misanthrope” in November, musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” in February, and “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” in April.
