The BFA Ballet degree has only been available at UVU for the past three years and when the Board of Regents approved the BFA program, dance students were more than thrilled to be a part of it.
In order to enhance the new BFA program, the Repertory Ballet Ensemble was added to the curriculum to give dancers real dance experience.
“It’s a wonderful company; we’re proud to showcase our students as they’ve come up through the program,” said Jackie Colledge, ballet coordinator.
The company will be showcasing its talent during the spring concert, which is at 7:30 p.m. on April 14-16 at the Ragan Theater. Tickets for the general public are $10 and $8 for students and faculty of UVU.
Ballet has a rich and beautiful history, and UVU is now proudly a part of that history.
The Royal Academy of Dance, later named the Paris Opera Ballet, was founded in 1661, and was the first to offer professional ballet instruction. And now, all these many hundreds of years later, UVU participates in the instruction of the art known as ballet.
It was said by Jean Georges Noverre, a 1700s French choreographer, that the purpose of ballet is to “represent characters and express their feelings.” And it was then that he encouraged dancers to remove their bulky costumes and do away with their masks. Noverre believed that it was the dancer’s body that should be used to articulate emotions.
As with any art form it seems that the expression of emotion is the purpose and is the very thing that makes the art so appealing. Whether the emotion is love, anger, joy or sadness, the fluid movement of the ballerinas as they move gracefully across the stage pulls the spectators into the private world of those before them. It is almost an intimate experience between audience and performer, as the dancers offer up their raw emotions and the patrons take them in and contemplate the message.
UVU students and community members alike have the opportunity to take part in this moving dialogue. Come experience emotions brought to life, through the movement of the body; come to the Repertory Ballet Ensemble in Concert.
