Another choreographic residency in the books, folks! With each new dance completed, it feels like our May 20th show at the Harris Theatre is inching up closer and closer!! (P.s. our tickets are LIVE, check it out at https://my.harristheaterchicago.org/9805/9806 !)

This past week, immediately prior to our 2-week holiday break as a company, we had the privilege of having Ron de Jesus and his beautiful assistant, Kiri, join us in studio! After a year of virtual residencies and performances, it is always refreshing to have new energy in our dance space. Ron had five short days of rehearsal to put together our finale piece for the show in May. Ron had the biggest challenge of working with a cast of thirteen dancers. The cast is made up of all of SCDT’s company members, all of our emerging artists, our wonderful trainee, and four of our guest artists!

Each choreographer’s approach is quite different, and it’s always a joy and a learning experience to see how people like to create dance. Ron was very collaborative with us as dancers and referred to each of us as “different precious gems of a crown”. Kicking off the week with this analogy helped us all to feel valued and in a safe space to experiment with choreography. And it is so true – without each one of us and our creative minds, there wouldn’t be a dance or a company! We all have such a special contribution to this dance and to this company as a whole.

After spending the first day constructing some of our own material as well as duet/trio material with various partners, Ron began to construct his piece. Ron had already chosen some intense, dark music to compliment the dancing we had been working on thus far. It wasn’t until day three when we really got into the core of creating the dance. We tried some big lifts with Elijah, Hayley, and Kim that are quite frankly show-stopping spectacles. Safety is always our top priority, but these lifts are impressive and difficult if I do say so myself! Ron also choreographed a giant group section for the last minute of the piece that is extremely grounded and athletic. This dance ends with a true bang to close our fifth anniversary show, that’s for certain!

We were pressed for time with such a big cast and only one week to make a highly-intricate ten minute piece. Our last day of rehearsal for the year (Friday, December 17) was a sweaty one – but that just goes to show the hard work that we put into it! Day five was intense to say the least as we quickly worked to string together all of the sections of the piece. Transitions were clarified, entrances and exits were set, and extra choreography was executed in order to make the piece as brilliant as it could be.

About an hour before the end of rehearsal, board members, mentors, other choreographers, and SCDT supporters came to watch an open showing of Ron’s work. We ran the piece full out twice from top to bottom, which was a physical toil. I’m proud of where the piece is at and truly believe that it will be a tremendous way to end our Harris Theatre show as well as our 5th anniversary season.

It’s always a privilege getting to work with new choreographers, and Ron was no exception. His desire and passion to create a high-energy, thrilling, and all-around virtuous work was evident this week. He’s a choreographer I look up to and his intensity made us all push ourselves to our dancing limits which always makes for a cutting-edge performance.

May 20 – save the date! You won’t want to miss it. What a way to end 2021. We can’t wait to begin 2022 with more residency fun. Next up…Stephanie Martinez!