The final step: A capstone in choreography

By Margaret Murray

Senior dance majors Katharine Thies and Cecilia Peterson have not enjoyed the luxury of what should be their last and ostensibly most easy quarter. A senior's weeks following spring break should consist of light-heartedly skipping to their final classes, planning their upcoming celebratory plans for graduation and wringing their hands wondering what they are going to do with the rest of their life.

For many, their academic careers have come to an end in the form of senior theses or other courses developed as a summation of their major. For the business students, the culmination of their academic career is a capstone course, for communication majors it is a senior thesis, for English majors, a seminar. All hard work, all long hours.

For dance majors at Santa Clara, their college careers reach a pinnacle in the form of the Spring Dance Festival they have spent more than a year and countless hours preparing for. On Saturday, April 17 at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 18 at 2 p.m. in Fess Parker Studio Theatre, Katharine and Cecilia will perform in a recital they single-handedly produced with merely the guidelines and guidance of their advisor, Kristin Kusanovich.

This year, the show is particularly unique, and while previous shows have spotlighted up to four senior dance majors, this performance is for Katharine and Cecilia alone.

"Since we have such a small class of dance majors, it is just the two of us doing recitals out of the whole year," said Katharine. "It has been really nice to work on putting together a festival with only one other choreographer. My cast met five days a week for three-hour rehearsals. There is so much time and energy put into these performances, it's really amazing."

With countless hours of hard work and planning and the stress of putting on an original recital, one must wonder how the driving force remains. While most senior theses consist of a few hours in a classroom, the life of a dance major is worlds apart.

"My recital has taken over my life," said Cecilia. "We had our first meeting to prepare for our recitals last May. We had to cast, come up with music, costumes, choreograph and take care of all of the details."

A passion for dancing has existed in each of these girls for years. Cecilia has been dancing since she was five years old and Katharine has dabbled in dance since taking ballet as a little girl. Together, the two seniors have taken on one half of the show and choreographed their own modern dance routines using music, costumes and props as materials to convey their art.

While Cecilia considers herself a "minimalist" and focuses on dancing, Katharine, a theatre, dance and studio art major, uses props and her own sculptural pieces in her performance.

Music in the show is used as an enhancement to the performance and an expression of the passion and energy that exists in this art form.

"Most of my music is pretty obscure for this piece," said Katharine. "I've used a couple of foreign composers, some experimentalist pieces, and there is even a live vocal solo that was composed specifically for one of the dances."

Cecilia chose Bach, fiddle music and stays away from pop, which we will undoubtedly be grateful for.

In a society where art is considered to be dying a quick and painful death, one must wonder why. In other cultures, artists are held on pedestals. Let's all do ourselves a favor, and fall in love with the expression of human emotion that has been around almost as long as mankind.