17 year old, Collegiate Academy student, Hannah Borczon has been taking dance classes since she was three years old. Last summer, she attended Interlochen School of the Arts Summer Program of Modern Dance in Michigan where she received The Fine Arts Award for outstanding performance in Modern Dance. While there, it was also made clear that although her modern and jazz techniques were strong, her ballet technique needed improvement. She made the decision to focus on her weakness and dive into the ballet world full force. This meant leaving the comforts of her home school, thereby, starting from the bottom and working upward. This is Hannah’s first full time year at Sovereign Ballet, where she dances 14 hours per week.
Hannah’s goal is to dance in a professional modern dance company and to eventually direct and choreograph her own touring company. So, why the focus on ballet? “Modern dance was, traditionally, pioneered to go against the rigorous defined body lines and forms that are found in traditional/classical ballet. In my opinion,” as stated by James Dixon, Teacher of Contemporary dance at Sovereign Ballet, “in order to achieve that baseline of overall dance technique Ballet is extremely important because it reinforces the foundational elements that contemporary and modern dance often leaves out.”
While focusing on her weakness during class, Hannah’s Instructor Christina Maria, Director of Sovereign Ballet, noticed many of her strengths. “Because of her ability to pull movement from so many different genres of dance; it’s really compelling what she creates. She has the ability to create a style that is ‘outside the box,’” states Maria.
Christina approached Hannah with the idea of a performance featuring her choreography. Kore was born. Kore is an original one-act ballet retelling the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades. “The cast is made up primarily of members of the Sovereign Ballet top level,” Borczon describes. “The story centers on a young goddess who is pulled into the underworld and forced to marry its king. I however decided to show more than just her perspective by also focusing on the perspectives of the supporting characters and their reactions to the unfolding events. The creative process has been really interesting and the cast has accommodated all my random rehearsal methods to really bring the show to life. James Dixon as Hades is bewitching and Olivia Lane as Persephone is a heroin everyone can get behind. Brooke Kimet as Artemis is an emerging star and Taylor Arrington as the Queen of the Amazons exemplifies the athleticism and grace all dancers wish to achieve.”
Kore debuts March 5th at 4pm in “An Afternoon of Original Works”, along with solo works by Taylor Arrington, Olivia Lane and Elana Dolan.
Leave A Comment