Student dance group Reflections Repertory Company showcased the leaps and pirouettes of 17 dancers with its debut ballet show “Sparks Fly” on Friday and Saturday at The Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts.
Reflections celebrated its inaugural year at NU as the only student dance group dedicated solely to ballet. The group was founded in response to a lack of rigorous ballet training on campus that many dancers missed, Reflections Executive Director and SESP sophomore Morgan Dreher said.
Dancers performed to an audience of around 150 people across three shows, according to Reflections Artistic Director and Communication sophomore Yitong Zhang.
The ballerinas performed a total of 13 pieces, dancing to songs such as “everything i wanted” by Billie Eilish and “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” by The Smiths. The show opened with a full company number to a classical ballet piece titled “Petrichor.”
“The energy is so high,” Dreher said. “It’s just such a great way to kick off the show.”
Showcasing many styles of ballet like classical, contemporary and en pointe, the show kept the audience on the “edge of (their) seat,” Weinberg sophomore Grace Xie, the company manager for Reflections, said.
Xie said one of her favorite pointe pieces was “Esmeralda Pas de Quatre,” which featured a quartet of ballerinas dancing with tambourines. The piece was adapted from the classical ballet show “La Esmeralda.”
The show featured pieces choreographed by students. Dreher said it was “special” to create her contemporary ballet piece, “Uncharted,” which spotlighted the Reflections executive board members.
The show also featured guest performances from Typhoon Dance Troupe on Friday and Steam Heat Dance Company on Saturday. Typhoon performed a traditional Mongolian dance titled “Dao La,” and Steam Heat performed a musical theatre style piece to the song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from the soundtrack of the film “Dirty Dancing.”
Steam Heat Artistic Director and Weinberg junior Emily Thompson said Steam Heat was originally planning on attending the show to support Reflections’ debut but was excited to receive the offer to perform.
“The dance community as a whole is just so interconnected, and we all love to just do guest performances and joint shows,” Thompson said. “We all just love to show up and support each other.”
The Friday show also welcomed a guest duet piece from Weinberg sophomores Emma de Verteuil and Lorenzo Pantano, showing off impressive partner lifts and tricks.
Pantano is a contracted dancer at the Champaign Urbana Ballet. Reflections dancer de Verteuil invited him to perform with her, and he said he was “glad there was finally a student space” for ballet on campus.
As one of two male dancers in the Friday show, Pantano said he is committed to challenging negative stereotypes about men in ballet.
Dreher also praised his performance with de Verteuil.
“It’s so beautiful and very inspirational,” Dreher said. “It’s great to bring in male dancers because (it challenges) people’s notions of who ballet is for and what ballet is.”
The company consists of an audition-based performance division that rehearses weekly. Reflections also has an open division that offers student-led, open ballet classes for students of all dance experience levels.
Dreher said “it feels completely surreal” to see the show come to life after months of preparation.
“We’ve worked so hard to put the show together,” Dreher said. “This whole process has really been such a dream come true.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to better represent Dreher’s thoughts on Pantano and de Verteuil’s performance.
Email: barbarabomfim2028@u.northwestern.edu
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