In February, the Flint School of Performing Arts (FSPA) dance department will present its Emerging Choreographers Showcase, which develops and spotlights the creative talents of high school dancers. An outside adjudicator will attend the February showcase and select one of the pieces to appear in both performances of Festival of Dance, May 2 – 3 at the UM-Flint Theater.  

The program is designed to foster creativity and provide young dancers with a platform to express their artistic visions. Participants must be in their sophomore, junior or senior year of high school, and each begins by submitting a detailed proposal outlining their dance concept and programmatic intent.    

Tara Gragg, chair of the FSPA dance department, emphasizes the importance of this initial proposal. “It shows me that they’ve thought this out and they’re really committing to it,” she notes. The prospective choreographers can express casting preferences, allowing them to specify the size and composition of their group. This level of involvement helps them develop essential skills in coordination and planning, as they must work their casting needs into the broader schedule of the department, says Gragg.  

The Emerging Choreographers program, introduced by former FSPA Dance Chair, Karen Jennings, has seen a resurgence in recent years. “Last year we had three choreographers, which was exciting because during the pandemic and the couple of years after that, the program kind of faded,” Gragg explains. The renewed interest and participation signal a bright future for the program.  

That future is only enhanced by FSPA’s 2024 introduction of a dance composition class, taught by FSPA Dance instructor Natalia Retzloff, to better prepare dancers for the choreographic process. The class teaches students about the tools and techniques of choreography, similar to learning the fundamentals of art or music composition. “It’s hard to tell someone to just ‘make up a dance’ if they don’t know where to begin,” explains Gragg. “It’s a broad assignment, and it’s intimidating,” she adds. “But the more you know, the more creative you can be – like learning the alphabet before you try to write a sentence.”  

Emerging choreographers in action
To ensure a fair and enriching experience, the program is limited to three participants. And although only one choreographer is guaranteed a performance at Festival of Dance, in past years, Gragg (and Jennings before her) found creative ways to allow opportunities for all participants to perform. “We always consider how we can get as many of these dancers on stage as possible,” Gragg says.   

This year’s participants are Flint Youth Ballet seniors Madeline Marshick and Zyona Looney and junior Brooklynn Wilson. By January, all roles will be cast and each choreographer will spend about 10 hours in rehearsal “setting” the four- to five-minute piece, in which they teach the dance and refine their vision through the process.   

Gragg or other faculty will provide guidance during the “cleaning” phase of rehearsals, challenging the young artists to consider their artistic intent for the piece and explore new ways to bring it to light. “Sometimes their vision doesn’t work in action, so they have to figure out what to do when things don’t work out the way they thought it would,” says Gragg. “I have experience and expertise that I can offer, and I am happy to help them go where they want to go.”   

Once the piece is refined, the dancers engage in shorter focused rehearsals until the showcase in February.   

Setting the stage for life-long success
Alex Bush, FSPA alumnus and former Emerging Choreographers participant says the opportunity to learn how to use movement to tell a multi-layered story was invaluable to her career as a dancer and storyteller.   

As a professional dance artist and former professor of dance, as well as a photographer and writer, Bush credits the program with shaping her understanding of choreography and performance. “From the beginning, I was encouraged to think about the craft of choreography, not just building interesting dance phrases,” she recalls.  

“I also learned valuable skills, like how to structure and run a rehearsal, how to edit and clarify my work and prepare it for performance, and how to communicate effectively with other artistic partners,” she adds.   

Enriching experiences like this one at FSPA prepared her for success in her undergraduate and graduate studies in a way that many of her own students are not. “Being in a position as a teenager to think critically about an audience and crafting a work that would invite them to consider an idea or a perspective through a shared experience is highly unusual in most curricula for young dancers,” she notes.  

And the experience isn’t only valuable for young dancers who express a focused interest in choreography, says Bush. It has the power to inform the artistic process across mediums.   

“My work has always lived at an intersection of performance, education and engaging communities through dance and the body. While choreography is an integral component to that work, I view it as much more holistic than that, and my early experiences in dance at FSPA absolutely helped shape that perspective.”   

The Emerging Choreographers showcase takes place on Saturday, Feb. 22 at 2 p.m. in MacArthur Recital Hall at FIM Dort Music Center and is open to the public.