Members of Chautauqua School of Dance perform “One” choreographed by Bonnefoux McBride Artistic Director of Chautauqua School of Dance Sasha Janes in their performance with the Music School Festival Orchestra Aug. 3 in the Amphitheater.
NORA SMITH
Staff Writer
Having leapt further into the professional world in Chautauqua Institution’s School of Dance, students will now perform on the Amphitheater stage for the final time this Summer Season at 8 p.m. tonight.
Natalie Bowman, a dancer in the Pre-Professional Division, grew up in Minnesota and said, after begging her parents to put her in classes, she first started dancing around the age of 7.
“[I] fell in love with it very quickly and just always really wanted more,” Bowman said. “It’s one of those things you get a taste of it; you just can’t get enough.”
Bowman said at around the age of 11, she started thinking about dance more seriously and began training at St. Paul Ballet before moving to Seattle toward the end of high school to further pursue it.
“That was kind of the point where I was like, ‘Okay, this feels feasible to go professional. Like, this is the dream; we’re going to go for it,’” Bowman said.
In the past year, Bowman moved to St. Louis for a position at St. Louis Ballet, and she said it has been very exciting to enter the professional world after all the years of training and hard work.
“It really has opened the door to, ‘Okay, now where do I take it?’ Now that I’ve achieved this kind of milestone, it’s like, ‘What is my career? Where is my career going to take me? What do I want from dance besides hitting these points?’” Bowman said.
Bowman said studying with Chautauqua School of Dance has allowed her to see that despite sharing such a strong love for dance, every dancer’s path is distinct.
“I think it’s so beautiful,” Bowman said. “Even just talking to the staff and hearing how they’ve been fulfilled in different ways in their careers, whether it’s dancing at different companies … I think it’s just like following where your heart is. ‘Are you doing the things you want to be doing? Are you dancing the repertoire you want to do?’”
This is Bowman’s first time at the School of Dance, and she said the program has been an incredible, immersive experience and all the dancers have formed close bonds.
“There’s so much shared passion, and so many interesting conversations, even with other artists in Chautauqua outside of dance and little collaborations,” Bowman said. “It’s been so magical and inspiring.”
Judah Horenfeldt, a dancer in the Festival Division, is also experiencing Chautauqua’s School of Dance for the first time.
“I really like the program,” Horenfeldt said. “It’s super intense, but it’s in a good way because you get so much out of it and it’s so cool to learn from teachers, from different teachers all over the world…”
Horenfeldt said the performance aspect of the program is a highlight because he gets to improve in every skill aspect of dance. Currently, Horenfeldt is training at the School of American Ballet; he said he dreams of one day making it into the New York City Ballet.
Noemi Okun, another dancer in the Festival Division, said she first started dancing when she was just 3 years old, and she always knew she wanted to pursue it as a career. She first started to take it seriously around age 11, when she joined Pacific Northwest Ballet.
“It’s scary because it’s not a typical career path, like, it’s definitely not something my parents are very familiar with,” Okun said. “But one of the reasons I came [to the School of Dance] was because of the career path opportunities and the connections you can make here.”
This is Okun’s first time at the School of Dance, and she said it is very different from her other experiences at other dance programs around the country.
“It’s definitely healthy competitive, but it’s really supportive as well,” Okun said. “It’s a lot more like a community.”
Okun said because the classes and program are relatively small, it feels like the students get the attention they need because the staff and faculty get to know the dancers quickly and can learn closely how much the students are improving.
In the future, Okun said she hopes to dance as much as she can.
“I really would love to do this professionally, like, dance all the roles I look up to, even the things I see the pre-pros doing, I’d like to do that someday,” Okun said. “Hopefully someday, [I can] come back here and be a pre-pro. That would be really awesome.”
