Friends University Fall Ballet dedicated to sacred dance

A program devoted to sacred dance is on tap this weekend at Friends University thanks to an influential person – the school’s new president.

Amy Bragg Carey asked that the school’s annual Fall Ballet follow that theme as part of events surrounding her inauguration this weekend.

“She’s never seen us perform before, so it’s kind of exciting,” said Sharon Rogers, Friends’ associate professor of ballet.

The Fall Ballet will be staged Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Sebits Auditorium. About 20 dance and ballet majors at the school will take part, dancing new, old and revised pieces to the music of Rich Mullins, Charles Ives and Ani DiFranco.

The student dancers are excited, too.

“It’s both technically and emotionally challenging,” said Courtney Miller, a sophomore from Texas who will dance the title role in “Mary.”

That piece portrays the Crucifixion through the eyes of Mary.

“When Jesus was crucified, Mary went through several stages of grief,” Miller said. “(Rogers) had me go back to the Bible and really look at it from Mary’s perspective. It’s been challenging, but it’s also been really good. I don’t want people to see me dancing. I want people to see Christ through me.”

Rogers said she and Friends ballet director Stan Rogers had already been planning to include some sacred dance in this year’s Fall Ballet. “We have so many requests for ‘52:10,’ which is the Rich Mullins music,” she said.

Stan Rogers originally collaborated with Mullins to produce that ballet in the mid-1990s. Mullins, a well-known Christian artist and former Friends student, was killed in a car accident in 1997. The title refers to a passage in Isaiah.

Rogers said he made minor changes in the choreography for this weekend’s performance of “52:10,” while completely re-doing another piece set to the music of Ives, who combined modernist and church music during his career.

Jared Mazurek, a senior from Pittsburg, Kan., will dance in four pieces, including the role of the angel Gabriel in “Mary.”

“You have to put a lot of the emotion and power behind that character,” Mazurek said. “The angel Gabriel is really a messenger of God. He’s there, he’s powerful, he has to get his message across. But he’ll also be kind of a reassuring in a way.”

Mazurek said some of the music featured this weekend has lyrics, which is “not typical of ballet” and presents another sort of challenge.

Carey, who started her new job July 1, has said she wants to re-emphasize the principles on which the school was founded by Quakers 117 years ago.

“I think she really is interested in fulfilling the mission of the university,” Sharon Rogers said. In addition to the sacred aspect of this weekend’s ballet, she said, “It’s just beautiful dancing.”

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 8:24 AM with the headline "Friends University Fall Ballet dedicated to sacred dance."