We are back from Kalamazoo, Michigan and our lovely week-long residency with Western Michigan University’s Department of Dance! What an amazing week jam-packed with dance, seminars, learning, and choreographing it was! While at the school’s dance department, we committed ourselves to a number of opportunities for and with the students. A big thank you to Kelsey Paschich, the faculty advisor who brought us to WMU and scheduled the week for us!

WESTERN DANCE PROJECT NEW PIECE

Kia S. Smith worked with 13 dancers of the department’s own company, Western Dance Project, and choreographed a twenty-minute piece in just 4 short days of rehearsal. It was incredible to see how Kia worked with the dancers and utilized her short time so wisely to make such a brilliant piece. This dance will be performed as a piece of repertoire for WDP as they tour throughout Michigan next fall and will premiere at WMU Dance’s Winter Gala 2024.

MEMOIRS OF JAZZ IN THE ALLEY OPPORTUNITY

At the beginning of our week in Michigan, Kia auditioned a large amount of dancers and selected 4 of them to be a part of SCDT’s show at the Auditorium Theater in June of 2023. These 4 dancers will travel to Chicago later in the year to rehearse with our full company and are given the opportunity to perform professionally with us and have this piece as one to put on their professional resume! Trey, Sophia, Hayley, Elijah, and Kim worked with these four students all week long, teaching them our current repertoire and rehearsing the sections of the piece they will be a part of on June 10!

MASTER CLASSES WITH THE COMPANY AND KIA

All six of us dancers and Kia all taught class throughout the week for the students of WMU’s dance department. In addition to giving class, a lot of us also jumped into each others’ classes and got to take with the students and be inspired alongside inspiring them. It is such a good experience for us to take class with new people!

SENIOR SEMINAR

All of us also enjoyed the opportunity to discuss our careers in dance and give advice on auditioning and living a life in the dance world with the Seniors of the department. We were in their shoes not too long ago and it was so fun to offer any thoughts and tips we have for the next wave of dancers coming through graduation and into the real world!

Overall, our time at Western Michigan University was busy, but so much fun. We were privileged to be there for a full week and really get to know some of these wonderful students. Thanks for the best week and we hope to see you again soon!