Stanford ballet group prospers regardless of lack of dance main

Stanford doesn’t provide a dance main, however despite this, extremely expert dancers and choreographers who educate at and attend Stanford foster a thriving dance scene on campus by campus organizations.

Amongst them, the Cardinal Ballet Firm (CBC) is a campus favourite, holding annual sold-out performances of “The Nutcracker,” a spring manufacturing and workshops taught by world-renowned ballet dancers. 

“CBC has not solely given me the chance to proceed dancing all through my faculty expertise, nevertheless it’s additionally simply an unbelievably welcoming group,” Nadia Chung ’26 advised The Each day. Chung started dancing with the corporate this fall, taking part in the good friend of the protagonist Clara and part of the Snow Corps within the 2022 manufacturing of “The Nutcracker.”

Chung hopes to pursue regulation sooner or later and is at the moment planning on majoring in political science. She began taking ballet lessons at round 13 years outdated. 

All through center and highschool, ballet was extremely useful to her as a technique to relieve stress, specific herself and discover a group. The CBC supplied alternatives for her to additional this ardour.

“I by no means imagined how essential ballet could be to me in faculty,” mentioned Chung. “I actually look as much as the opposite people on this firm. They make ballet so, so enjoyable.”

Bradley Moon ’25, featured because the Nutcracker prince within the 2022 manufacturing, additionally described the CBC’s group as certainly one of its main attributes. “The most effective half is the folks — everybody’s actually motivated to bop, and everybody actually loves what they do,” Moon advised The Each day.

Moon beforehand studied on the Marat Daukayev Faculty of Ballet and was chosen as a New York finalist on the Youth America Grand Prix, the world’s largest non-profit worldwide pupil ballet competitors.

Nonetheless, Moon — like Chung — didn’t see himself pursuing dance as a profession.

“It ends very early. It doesn’t pay effectively, and it’s very troublesome to discover a job,” mentioned Moon. Nonetheless, he was particularly grateful that the CBC enabled him to proceed dancing all through faculty.

Final Could, Moon performed The Prince within the CBC’s manufacturing of “Sleeping Magnificence.” Although Moon is content material along with his alternatives to bop on campus, he mentioned the absence of a dance main might affect college students who’re on the lookout for an enriching faculty dance expertise together with their extra educational research. The Each day has reached out to the College for remark however has not obtained a response.

“My youthful sister could be very critical about dancing,” Moon mentioned. “And she or he’s truly very discouraged by the thought of coming to Stanford due to my experiences right here — that Stanford doesn’t provide many alternatives to bop moreover golf equipment.”

Chung, nevertheless, didn’t discover the dearth of a dance main to affect her immediately. She took a considerable amount of ballet lessons on campus and located the dance golf equipment on campus to be very sturdy.

“There are a number of golf equipment for up to date dance, hip hop, jazz, ballet, cultural dances, et cetera,” Chung mentioned. “Folks can select to be tremendous concerned within the dance group in the event that they’d wish to, however they’ll additionally select to have much less involvement if that matches their schedule higher.”

Below the TAPS dance minor, there are at the moment 65 dance programs obtainable, each educational and sensible. Numerous superior dance lessons are supplied, resembling Ballet III (Superior Ballet), Modern Trendy III and Modern Trendy: Superior Comparative Strategies.

Alex Ketley, a lecturer within the dance division, believes that Stanford dancers’ dedication to dancing is only one side of their various and wealthy expertise throughout faculty. Based on Ketley, although there are solely two Superior Ballet lessons every week (far lower than what ballet dancers would see in a extra skilled context), college students that attend Stanford have many passions and educational pursuits other than ballet.

“What you’d achieve in going to a program with a dance main is actually extra centered time for dancing, however these establishments lack the world class lecturers that Stanford gives,” Ketley wrote to The Each day.

Ketley is a 2020 Guggenheim fellow, a former classical dancer on the San Francisco Ballet and director of The Foundry, a multimedia dance firm he co-created in 1998. Because the lecturer for a number of upper-level dance lessons together with Superior Ballet, he obtained suggestions from college students (who embrace former skilled dancers) that his lessons have been difficult and enriching.

“I actually haven’t labored with any dancers that discover the lessons straightforward!” Ketley wrote.