Michaela Thaners is a student in Skip Costa’s choreography class who
presented her solo and group routine at the dancers showcase.
The Lion's Roar / Heather Jewell

Students who wished to take a leap and spin into choreography this Fall 2014 semester took a class specifically to hone and expand their skills.

The class performed this past Thursday night, showcasing all they had learned. Many styles were presented by each dancer. Faith Allen and Jaquan Warren were two soloists who incorporated their personal styles into their pieces; Allen performed a contemporary dance while Warren conducted a hip hop routine. 

The class was open to all currently enrolled students of the university, and is only available in the fall semesters. Students enrolled were under the tutelage of Skip Costa, a Southeastern alumnus. Costa spent ten years in New York, and returned to the South nearly two and a half years ago to take the position at Southeastern as a dance and choreography instructor. In the middle of the semester there was a showing when individuals not in the class could go and witness the work done in the studio. They had the opportunity to determine whether or not they would like to register the following year.

“If you have an interest in movement, of any style, this class will teach you not only how to move, but how to better it. Through dance you learn to better carry yourself,” said Joseph Matherne, a junior computer science major who incorporated martial arts into his own solo routine.

Group numbers choreographed by each student were also presented; the group routines were all to the song “After the Storm,” by Mumford and Sons. Students could use any version of it that they found.

They began working on their pieces in November with assigned practice hours. They applied their newly gained knowledge to devise their pieces.

Martie Fellom, a dance coordinator at Southeastern, was very impressed with Michaela Thanars’ group routine, in which she featured chairs for the dancers.

“It was a very inventive piece of work that invited me into the piece on a personal journey, the use of the dancers and incorporating chairs was very inventive,” said Fellom.

Costa wanted his students to choreograph their own interpretations of the song although he had larger plans for the dances. In the spring, the choreographers and Costa will execute one routine with every interpretation simultaneously being performed in Friendship Circle.

Costa hopes more students will take an interest in the program and that it could then expand throughout campus, putting on more shows, weekly.

“If you put 15 people in a room for a day with only the flooring and a stereo, you would see so many different types of movement from that one day,” said Matherne.