By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
This weekend will be the last dance for the last two dance majors at Bowling Green State University.
Shannon Cleary and Emily Sindyla have prominent roles in the Winter Dance Concert. That’s fitting because once they are gone, the university will have no dance majors. The major has been eliminated as part of the transition of the dance program from the School of Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies to the Department of Theatre and Film.
Students will still be able to minor in dance.
The change, which has been in the works for about two years, will be official next fall.
The Winter Dance Concert will be Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. in the Donnell Theatre in the Wolfe Center for the Arts. Click for tickets.
For Sindyla and Cleary the performance is bittersweet. Both are passionate about dancing and BGSU’s dance program.
Neither came to be dance major. Sindyla intended to major in business. Realizing she could study dance “was an added perk,” she said.
She ended up majoring in dance with a business minor.
Cleary came to BGSU because “I liked the feel of the campus,” and without a clear idea of what she would study.
She also ended up in dance. She’s a double major in dance and journalism and public relations.
That they would end up studying dance is not surprising; they both have danced since they were 2 years old. That’s 20 years of dancing. And both hope to remain involved after BGSU.
Cleary, who comes from the Akron area, said when she was 8, she moved into a competitive program. From then on that’s what she did. She had dance five nights a week, four hours a night. “When I’m performing, I feel like it’s the authentic version of myself,” she said.
Cleary hopes to put her public relations background to work promoting the arts, whether as a social media expert or events planner. “My dream would be to combine them both so I can be around dance.” That would preferably be in a larger city with a vibrant art scene, she added.
At this point, Sindyla expects to return to her hometown of Strongsville after May graduation. Her performance career will be over. She wants to focus on teaching dance and feels her business studies will help her to launch her own dance studio in the future.
In Bowling Green, she’s had the chance to teach at The Beat Dance Company, which owned by Colleen Murphy, coordinator of the BGSU dance program.
“The biggest part of keeping with dance is sharing that passion, not only for myself and my family, but with others, teaching little kids to find that love, that passion, for dance to express themselves in many different ways,” she said. “I love to see them evolve as dancers, see their beginning stages and then see the end result, see that passion grow.”
BGSU has given her the chance to explore a range of styles and genres of dance. In addition to the dance program, she’s been part of the University Dance Alliance, a student-led club open to all students interested in dance. Cleary is president of the alliance.
Sindyla is also a member of the university’s dance team, performing at home football and basketball games.
As usual that variety of styles was showcased at the winter concert.
Both Cleary and Sindyla were among the 10 dancers who opened the concert with an upbeat exploration of “The Season of Evolving Love,” where dancers paired off to music from Nat “King” Cole to the Goo Goo Dolls choreographed by graduate student Adrienne Ansel.
Both were in the solo spotlight as well. In “A Dancer’s Mark,” Sindyla got a chance to explore her emergence as a dancer. She steps on stage in a sweat shirt with a film of herself dancing in the background. As the dance progresses, she sheds her outer layers, and her movements free up until she dances jubilantly alone. The number, she said, allows her “to get all of my passion out there and share it with others.”
Cleary opens up the joyful “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse with a long tap solo before the rest of the dancers step from the wings to join her.
Cleary said she was proud that Murphy, who is “a kind of a tap fiend,” gave her a chance to solo on the big tap number. “I’m very honored that she trusted me with a solo, that she thought I had enough spunk and talent to do it.”
Cleary and Sindyla were among the 22 dancers performing.
Those numbers included choreographer Kristi Faulkner’s touching, yet perplexing “Miss Informed,” featuring Cleary and Sindyla.
Alec Batton choreographed and performed his own solo “It Gets Better,” set not to music but an inspiring TEDTalk aimed at gay youth. Batton also gets a lead role in the comic “I Love Surprises” where Ansel smears cupcake on his face. That’s the right makeup for his stand comedy routine that leads to dancing with Ansel, Jarrett Edwards, Kayleigh Hahn, Radhiya Pate, and Megan Sycks to Lesley Gore’s hit “It’s My Party” as choreographed by Kristi Faulkner.
Tammy Metz Starr, a former teacher in the dance program and highly respected performer, contributed two pieces. “If a Tree Falls” is a whimsical pastoral piece that has her young daughter Iris Jones scampering among the dancers Abbey Acerro, Morgan Prachar, Autumn White, Hahn, Cleary, and Ansel.
Starr’s “Bedroom Suite” looks at troubled sleep demo three angles including a harrowing monologue by Leigh Denick as a young girl trapped in her father’s paranoia.
Tracy Wilson’s “Societal Pressure” with Pate, Hahn, Sycks, and White explores the push and pull of solo and ensemble work to the music of Rationale.
These winter showcases, Sindyla said, were a highlight of her time at BGSU because it allowed the students to work so closely with faculty outside of class.
That there will be no other dance majors after she and Cleary step across the stage at graduation is”heartbreaking,” though she’s confident those students coming after will continue the program and its traditions.
That’s why Cleary, as university homecoming queen, selected the dance program as the recipient for her Falcon Funded Project fundraising efforts. “I want the program to continue to thrive,” she said.
The BGSU dance program reminds her of the small studio where she started dancing. “It’s like we’re all one big family.”
