Cardinal Ballet leaps into spring quarter with its annual show

April 3, 2014, 11:59 p.m.
Courtesy of Nick Salazar.
Courtesy of Nick Salazar.

Cardinal Ballet’s annual spring show, Cardinal Dance Fusion, will enliven Dinkelspiel Auditorium this Thursday and Saturday, in a pair of events that will feature performances blending classical and contemporary cultures.

Classically trained members of Cardinal Ballet will bring selections from La Bayadère and Swan Lake to life by introducing a contemporary piece titled Seed by renowned San Francisco-based choreographer and current Intro Ballet lecturer Erik Wagner.

Cardinal Dance Fusion will meanwhile showcase works by Stanford students. After After by Julia Neidert ’13 M.S. ’14 was created using statistical modeling to generate new choreography based on the works of classical choreographer Marius Petipa and contemporary choreographer Alonzo King. Neidert’s production promises to pique your imagination.

Additionally, expect to feel Dinkelspiel energized with a cheery performance set to “Time of My Life,” a dance to music from Tangled, and an original piece on pointe. The vast array of pieces presented by Cardinal Ballet aims to show the full range of talent and ability of the diverse student group while allowing dancers to expand their range and technique through assorted dances and forms.

As a worldwide language of its own, ballet endures through globally consistent performance and movement vocabulary with slight variations from culture to culture. Company director Caroline Grueskin ’14 said that she had found ballet classes fascinating during her travels to Germany, noting that “structure remained the same across cultures and was very easy to follow along, once you had a grasp of the technique.”

Grueskin added that within classical ballet’s “extremely precise technique, which sounds to most people completely stifling,” she found “extraordinary freedom as you begin to master it.” This freedom attained through perfecting classical ballet technique allows dancers to transcend boundaries of language and time to impart the longstanding lessons and stories of classical ballet and to celebrate the mysteries and joys of contemporary ballet. Furthermore, classical ballet technique acts as the springboard from which many dance forms have launched.

If you make it to Dinkelspiel this week, allow the energy of the performances to fuel your spring quarter as you momentarily find yourself immersed in an exquisite world of dance fashioned by Cardinal Ballet, Urban Styles, Bent Spoon, Dil Se, Los Salseros, Common Origins, TapTH@T, and Swingtime. Within the fleeting moments of grand beauty and fervor, we may very well find ourselves swelling with inspiration to achieve our own great leaps and strides.

 

Contact Sophia Dao at sdao “at” stanford.edu.

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