Young Choreographers Show Their Moves At Upcoming Showcase

Flint Youth Ballet veterans have an exciting opportunity to create new work on peers.

The Flint Youth Ballet Emerging Choreographers' Showcase, which will take place at 3 p.m. Sat., Feb. 1, is an opportunity for veteran members of the Flint Youth Ballet to explore creating original choreography for their peers. These high school juniors started their work in December and have been working only five weeks to prepare for the showcase, according to Karen Mills Jennings, Flint Youth Ballet Artistic Director.

The Flint School of Performing Arts' Dance Division curriculum explores both ballet and modern techniques, and its dancers also have experience with improvisation. The "emergings," as they're known at FSPA, have also performed a wide range of dance styles within the repertory of Flint Youth Ballet, giving them an unusually well-developed knowledge of a wide variety of ballet movements - or "vocabulary," - and the confidence to develop a vocabulary of their own, shared Jennings.

The Emerging Choreographers Showcase was first offered more than 20 years ago to support the ballet dancers' interest in choreography. It is held in the MacArthur Recital Hall. The showcase is free and open to public. Donations will be collected for a local charity.

"We want to support young artists exploring their voices in this art form," explained Jennings. "This can take on a variety of forms: sometimes as a performer, other times as a mentor, or in this case, a choreographer."

The Emerging Choreographers' Showcase is adjudicated by a professional choreographer who gives the young artists personal feedback. The adjudicator also selects one of the emerging's works to be performed at the annual Festival of Dance.

The 2020 emerging choreographers are Ava S. Butler, Junior, Powers Catholic High School; Brooke Lynn Farmer, Junior, Great Lakes Cyber Academy and Elena Pacheco, Junior, Genesee Early College.

The Flint Youth Ballet is part of the Flint School of Performing Arts, Michigan's largest community school of the arts and among the largest in the United States. More than 3,500 students from 21 counties across mid-Michigan discover an amazing world of music and dance in its state-of-the-art facility. FSPA is one of three programs of the Flint Institute of Music, along with the Flint Symphony Orchestra and the Flint Repertory Theatre.