A still from Kelsey Plath’s piece, which focuses on how women from Celtic folklore are represented in organized religion. Credit: Yitong Chen
Students in Ohio State’s dance major are not exempt from a senior-year thesis project. Theirs, however, looks a little different from most others.
Bachelor of Fine Arts seniors in Ohio State’s Department of Dance will showcase their capstone projects through a collective student-led showcase titled “Resonant, All We’ve Seen” Thursday through Saturday in Sullivant Hall’s Barnett Theatre. Each of the four performances — Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. plus a Saturday matinee at 1 p.m. — will feature the same 17 dances performed over the course of two hours, Arie Vasquez, a participating dancer, said.
Vasquez said every aspect of the show was conceptualized and created by the students performing, including the choreography, costuming, lighting and music. Jack Federinko, a participating dancer, said this is the first time the showcase has been mainly produced by its own student performers.
“We have had assistance from a couple faculty members, mainly Eddie Taketa and Jonathon Hunter, and of course, the support of our project advisers, but everything we’ve done we’ve separated into committees to make sure that this entire process actually happens and the whole project stays afloat,” Federinko said.
Vasquez said the showcase’s title was chosen by one of these student-run committees and aims to encompass the experiences of the seniors over the past four years. Federinko said it means something slightly different to each participating student, with some connecting the expression to personal academic pursuits and others relating it to the process of entering college during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The title, ‘Resonant, All We’ve Seen’ just kind of cultivates everything that we have learned and how we’ve grown over our process of these four years,” Vasquez said. “We’re taking all of that knowledge and then applying it to our choreography building and our creative process to produce all of these pieces.”
Kelsey Plath, a participating dancer, said the showcase will comprehensively highlight the student choreographers’ personal goals, interests and pursuits outside of dance, though each of the 17 individual capstone projects is distinctly personal.
Another still from Kelsey Plath’s piece. Credit: Yitong Chen
For example, Plath said her piece is about female deities in Celtic folklore and how such figures’ representation and public perception have been altered through organized religion. On the other hand, Vasquez and Abby Doerr, another participating dancer, said their pieces cover more abstract ideas of storytelling and the creative process, respectively.
Federinko said his piece centers on dance notation, or the symbolic representation of dance and movement for archival purposes.
“We’re all dance majors in the show, but a lot of us have other extra majors or minors,” Plath said. “And so a lot of our other interests are combined with dance to present in our own different thesis projects. So you’ll see a wide range of different choreography and different ideas and passions that are emerging within these 17 dance numbers. They’re all kind of unique in their own way.”
Because these routines act as the students’ senior thesis projects, the creative process demanded more than just choreography. Students first presented topic research to a faculty committee within the department and then worked on practical aspects of the show like lighting design, music selection, costume choices and set design, Vasquez said. Some performers even composed their own music.
Doerr said such a self-produced process feels like a culmination of her four years at Ohio State.
“I made my own costumes and the students all designed our own lighting, so that’s a very student-involved process of doing things that we learned at OSU,” Doerr said. “I think reflecting back on all the things that we’ve learned at OSU, it’s really cool to take all of these little things that we’ve learned in our classes and then to put them to use in this final project in such a collaborative way.”
Even before their senior year, dance students were encouraged to begin working on their respective projects, Plath said. Between the planning process being initiated as early as their sophomore year, a department-required “senior seminar” course to be taken their junior year and ongoing composition classes that instruct them on how to choreograph, many of this year’s participating seniors feel they have been preparing for this showcase throughout a majority of their time at Ohio State, Vasquez said.
Federinko agreed.
“I know for a lot of our products it’s been a lot of moving parts, and for most of us, I feel like this process has been going on for a lot longer than our senior year,” Federinko said. “So it’s just nice that we’re finally here presenting.”
Admission is free to each of the four performances, though tickets must be reserved via the Department of Dance’s website.
