Four seniors studying dance will perform final projects throughout the week.
Starting Thursday night, four seniors will be dancing for days to earn their degrees.
Thursday is the start of a three-day performance series for four seniors studying dance.
Allison Bradley, Najah Braswell, Jon Lawson and Grace Nicklos will participate in Senior Worx, an annual production in which senior dance students showcase their skills in dance performance and choreography. They are performing to complete their capstone class requirements for dance performance and choreography.
The show will feature two group pieces, two solos and two collaborative works with students from Factory Street Dance Studio.
Braswell said she has struggled with the reality of being a minority in the arts.
“My piece is called In Pursuance. The piece really came from me as a black woman, on this campus … assimilating to what the culture and the European world that we live in has kind of forced me to become,” she said.
Braswell added that her piece also focuses on other aspects of herself.
“That’s what my piece really thinks about, is the assimilating and also, being able to be yourself,” she said. “I’m very big on being true to yourself no matter who is around you. If you’re not comfortable enough to be yourself in the thing that makes you the happiest, then when are you able to be yourself?”
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Bradley said she has been working on her dance routine for about two months. Like any final senior project, the dance projects go through revisions and changes that can sometimes be frustrating to the choreographer and hold up deadlines.
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“We go through a process of choreographing, showing and getting feedback from our professors,” Bradley said. "It’s always going though those processes, editing and revising, constant change, sometimes even coming back to what you were originally doing.”
Braswell said she had a few more concerns throughout her work in rehearsals.
“It took a while, because I had music issues,” Braswell said. “You have to get rights to your music, so I had this music at the beginning of the month, and I come to find out it costs $400 to even use it, so I had to find something else quick. … It’s been such a rough past couple weeks trying to find music.”
The dancers said they are finally ready for their upcoming performances Thursday.
“It was a very long process,” Braswell said. “But, I was finally able to see where I was going and get it done.”
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