Remember summer? We do, too! As a lead-up to this year’s superb production of The Nutcracker, we wanted to reshare this summer story from the ballet department. It was a day like any other, until a bunch of the dancers went outside and danced on a new surface—a canvas.
Hanging prominently in the Jacobs School of Music is a vibrant portrait of creativity—a large-scale collaborative painting crafted by the school’s dancers, merging the worlds of visual art and movement; it’s a tribute to the different people and roles that come together here.
It started with a large blank wall space in the dean’s office. “We wanted something that would be eye-catching but also bright and happy,” says Kristin Martindale, executive administrative specialist to Dean Abra Bush. Unable to find a large and inspiring piece that “felt like Jacobs,” Martindale offered an innovative solution.
“Kristin came to me with this idea for the dancers to make a painting for the dean’s office, and I loved it from the start,” said Sarah Wroth, chair of the Ballet Department at IU. “We started talking about the possibilities, and I just ran with it.”
Wroth began coordinating what would evolve into a substantial series of paintings with an impact that extended far beyond the dean’s office. Working closely with Mark Smith, director of scenic painting and properties for IU Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater, she arranged for a large canvas that could be painted by the dancers’ movements in pointe shoes. She brought in nine undergraduate dancers who met for a rehearsal in the production shop, where they tried out which movements best expressed their dance in the shapes and textures on canvas.
Then on a beautiful May afternoon, and with Smith’s technical help setting up and preparing a 30-foot canvas outside, the dancers each took a quadrant of the large canvas and a chosen color, dipped their pointe shoes in paint, and danced. “The students prepared a playlist of their favorite dance music, and then they just had fun painting,” says Wroth. They ultimately created a work that is as stunning for its visual impact as it is for what it represents.
Graduating senior Sarah McGregor leapt at the chance to participate in this project: “I was excited because Dean Bush is somebody that I’ve admired throughout my time at IU. I was impressed that she chose a work for her office that was so relatable, one that was done by ballet students right in front of the building.” The relatable visual work that was produced continues to be a conversation piece in the dean’s office.
It also features the Ballet Department in a way that McGregor sees as an important statement for her program: “The music programs at Jacobs are so famous that not everybody realizes we also have one of the best ballet programs in the country. It feels great to promote that, and for me, it was just a great way to leave a lasting impression at the end of my senior year.” The footsteps of these dancers have now become iconic imagery at the Jacobs School.
The final piece is an innovative fusion of dance and visual art where the dancers’ physicality, athleticism, and grace are directly translated into color and texture. “Looking at the enormous canvas and knowing it would be broken up into any number of smaller pieces that would have their own lives was such a point of pride for all of us,” said Wroth. The initial request for the dean’s office was fulfilled, and it hangs on the wall along with a pair of the pointe shoes worn to make it. Each student dancer took home a piece of one of the canvases, and others will be mounted and shared with guests and partners of the school.
What started as an idea for a painting became increasingly meaningful as it evolved and took on the creativity of everyone involved. It is a visual metaphor for the work of artistry and how far that impact can extend. “It makes me smile every time I see it,” says Martindale. “I’m just so fortunate to work with people who are so creative.”
