With music, video and movement, the Dance Performance Project explored individuals’ definitions of joy, love, hope and faith in its first concert of the season.

Performance of “One Road: A Journey of Joy, Love, Hope, and Faith” began on Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Vonnie Borden Theatre.

The concert incorporated pieces choreographed by students such as Amber Whiteside, a senior marketing major with a minor in dance, with “Hope.”

Whiteside said, “I feel like all four of those words have a really powerful meaning and different meanings to everyone, so I feel like the show had a really different view for each person because each word means something completely different to everyone.”

Brianna Denmark, a senior general studies major with a concentration in dance, choreographed the second part of “Joy.” She shared her experience seeing the performance develop from practice to final product.

Denmark said, “It was difficult starting it because you’re starting right in the middle of the dance because you have to take from whatever the first choreographer’s going with and build off of that and then start to lead into the third choreographer’s, but in the end, it worked really well. I’m proud of all my dancers. They pulled off my concept.”

In her section, Denmark tried to portray each dancer with their definition of joy.

“I would watch them even if we weren’t in rehearsal,” said Denmark. “If we were just sitting in the studio goofing around, and they were dancing or something, I would look over and was like, ‘You know what, I’ll try to put that in.’ I know I put my definition of joy. Basically every single person had a say-so but didn’t realize they did.”

In “Faith,” Keith “Skip” Costa, director of dance, had his dancers walk out on stage and share their definition of faith with the audience. He enjoyed seeing and hearing the variety of interpretations for each of the four words throughout the concert.

Costa said, “When you take a subject such as faith, hope, joy or love, everyone has their individual definition of what say joy means to them and their experiences that surround the idea of joy, and sometimes just a specific image on stage or a movement on stage or a piece of the song can bring up or stir up emotions inside of them that they haven’t felt in a long time.”

Costa shared his thoughts on seeing his students’ choreography in the concert.

“I’m really happy with their works,” said Costa. “I feel like these juniors and seniors that choreographed were choreographing at that level. They were showing me that they are experienced to go out into the world to open up their own schools or be in performance companies or be directors or be teachers. They’ve proven to me that they’re ready to leave and graduate.”