Dancing for Ethiopia

By THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter

CASEY CAMPBELL/Gazette-Times
Katie van der Mars, right, Bethany Rist, Madeleine Katz, and Shawn Soward finish one of their performances during rehearsal Tuesday at the Corvallis Ballet Academy.

Benefit concert set to help orphanage

Sitting on a tall wooden stool with her long legs poised and her back straight, Madeleine Katz watches her fellow dancers with a careful eye, occasionally swaying to the piano music and sometimes rising to her feet as her body acts out the performance in sync with the dancer in front of her.

Normally, Katz would be facing the other direction, watching a teacher as she worked her way through a performance. But Katz is one of several student choreographers who are leading their peers in a concert Sunday night that will benefit AHOPE Orphanage in Ethiopia.

On Tuesday afternoon, she and three other dancers worked through a piece she choreographed called “Les Quatre Filles,” The Four Young Ladies.

As Katie van der Mars tried to work out the kinks in her new toe shoes, Bethany Rist and Shawn Soward worked through moves they were trying to perfect, and musician Josh Rist, Bethany’s brother, ran through the score.

When everyone was ready, they began to move in unison across the wooden floor.

“Do you want to change that part, Bethany?” Katz asked at one point, as Bethany seemed a little thrown by her solo section. Together, they worked out a better way to approach the movement.

Katz, a junior at Corvallis High School, is co-directing the fourth annual concert along with Alicia Fairbrother, a junior at Philomath High School. Many of the students are dancing as well as choreographing pieces. Dancers from the Corvallis Academy of Ballet and the Regional School of Ballet will both be performing.

“There’s always some people that just want to dance,” Soward said.

Katz, who is doing both, admitted that sometimes it’s hard to both be in a performance and watch it with a director’s keen eye.

“It’s amazing how much time choreography takes,” she said. “One minute can take an hour.”

Soward, who is also choreographing and performing, agreed.

“Sometimes you’re having a good choreographing day and you just get the whole piece done” Soward said. “Mine took like two or three separate times. The hardest thing is when you have different people doing different things. In my piece, before I got it ironed out, Madeleine was standing right in front of one of the other people, and it was my fault.”

Connecting strong movement or combinations together is sometimes difficult, as the choreographers struggle to move the dance smoothly from one elegant piece to another.

“It’s hard filling up the music sometimes,” Katz said. “Also when you’re dancing and choreographing the same piece, it’s hard to see from a distance when you’re doing it.”

The concert will include ballet, jazz and modern dance performances.

“It’s really fun watching other students’ choreography because it’s so different than watching something that one teacher has done,” Soward said. She said the pieces are more relatable to some audience members, because they’re all done by teenagers.

Although each choreographer does her own piece, input is always welcome, and even during rehearsals Katz was interested in hearing what her dancers thought.

“It adds something to do something together, but it also takes a lot more time,” Katz said.

At a glance

What: Student choreography benefit concert

When: 7 p.m. Sunday, April 23

Where: Majestic Theatre, 115 S.W. Third St.

Tickets: $8 for adults, $5 for students; available at Grass Roots Books & Music or at the door.

All money from Sunday’s performance will benefit AHOPE Orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The orphanage serves children with HIV/AIDS and provides medical and psychological care as well as educational programs, including dance, music and art.

To learn more: Go to www.orphandoctor.com and click on “worldwide orphans foundation.”