Students & Co

Dance Magazine, April, 2008

Because of its NYC location and flexible schedule, Columbia University's School of General Studies has several current and former professional ballet dancers walking around campus. In September, five of them decided to start their own student-run company. "We realized there was this amazing amount of talent between us," says Columbia Ballet Collaborative co-founder Lydia Walker, a former Suzanne Farrell Ballet and Pennsylvania Ballet II dancer, "and we wanted to create opportunities to perform ballet on campus." The CBC quickly grew, attracting undergraduate dancers from other schools in the university as well. Last December, the group presented their first performance in a studio theater at the Barnard dance department, showing pieces choreographed by company members as well as an excerpt from Bonnie Scheibman's Moon Roses.

The troupe plans to present a second performance this month, collaborating with a classical Indian dance club. Says Walker, "Our goal is to view different arts from a ballet perspective, combining movement that's familiar to us with other ideas we're learning about at Columbia."