When Medill sophomore Mila Brandson arrived at Northwestern her freshman year, she knew she wanted to join a dance group. Her mother was a former professional dancer and Brandson herself practiced ballet all her life.

Yet, when looking at the dance club offerings on campus, Brandson didn’t feel like her background in ballet matched any of the groups. Her friends Communication sophomore Yitong Zhang and SESP sophomore Morgan Dreher felt the same way. 

“We were pretty dissatisfied with the options for us on campus, since we all came from that same ballet training background. We want to create a space where we can actually continue dancing and training at that higher level and feel challenged,” Brandson said. “We felt like there was just a gap in offerings.”

During winter quarter of their freshman year, the three friends decided to take matters into their own hands: The seedlings of Reflections Repertory Company were planted.

At the time, the only classical ballet dance troupe on campus was Eight Counts Ballet Company, which focuses on offering accessible beginner-level ballet classes to students.

“Reflections just filled a niche that wasn’t filled when we got on campus,” Zhang said. “(Eight Counts) was barrier-free and maybe not as intensive of a level as we were used to.”

After working out the logistics for Reflections, the friends filled out a club application form last May. The following summer, they assigned executive board roles — Brandson as marketing director, Zhang as artistic director and Dreher as executive director — and prepared the dance company for its first round of auditions to build a base of dancers.

Weinberg freshman Emma Christensen auditioned for Reflections during the company’s first auditions last fall.

“It was a very smooth process for me,” Christensen said. “Normally, I feel like I get a lot of jitters about auditions, but I immediately felt so welcomed by the girls and the environment was just so great right from the start.”

Reflections Repertory Company’s main style of dance is contemporary ballet. Its dancers are trained in classical ballet, but Reflections’ style builds upon these technical foundations to have a more modern twist. The company also performs numerous contemporary pieces, as well as the occasional hip hop or jazz dances.

Reflections offers different levels of commitment for both beginners and seasoned dancers. Its open division is for more casual dancers who want to attend the occasional classes. The performance division, on the other hand, is audition-based. Those in this division rehearse weekly, perform in the company’s winter and spring shows and have opportunities to choreograph pieces on their own.

For those seeking a more rigorous ballet schedule similar to what they experienced growing up, Reflections’ performance division has created the community they were looking for.

“We’ve been getting to know all the girls in the company, because they’re people I otherwise probably would not have known,” Christensen said. “It’s just been so great, especially getting to know the upperclassmen who have kind of been like older sisters to me.”

But founding a dance troupe has not come without its difficulties, Brandson said. She and her co-founders had the most trouble with the learning curve of essentially starting and running a business from the ground up.

With funds being necessary to bring in guest choreographers, hire lighting designers, pay for company costumes and more — Reflections needed money. The club managed to get most of its funding from ASG grants.

“It was a little bit hard to find avenues for funding this year, but we definitely scraped up as much as we possibly could,” Brandson said.

Since its inception, Reflections has performed in New Movement Project’s fall dance concert, Evanston Light the Night and its own winter show, titled “Sparks Fly.” 

For the rest of Spring Quarter, the company’s docket is full. Reflections will host its spring show this quarter, and it plans on guest performing at Refresh Dance Crew’s spring show on April 26 and Unity Charity Fashion Show on May 8. 

“It’s been really special being able to create something of my own,” Zhang said. “Shaping a new community and then creating it both for ourselves and for other people has been really nice.

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