DancEnsemble is a dance company made up of BYU Dance majors and minors, as well as students taking regular dance classes at the university. The company gives students an opportunity to get creative and choreograph their own pieces.
"It's a big opportunity for students to choreograph. That's like the main mission of DancEnsemble," Maisy Gustaveson, a student choreographer, said.
The closing performance of their show, "Dilemma," was featured in the Dance Performance Theatre on March 15. The theme was one that student choreographers said they connected to personally.
"I really wanted to experiment with this idea of being in a dark place and how our sinful nature and times in our lives when we are far from God, how it feels like He's left us and that really hard thing to understand, I wanted to play with that contrast and that emotion and that despair of feeling alone and lost," Bailey Smith, another student choreographer, said.
Smith said her faith drives her dancing. She wanted each dance she choreographed to illustrate the journey of individual struggle and coming to know God through uniting with other people during her most challenging times.
"I really do feel like there's been people in my life that are angels sent from God," Smith said.
Gustaveson said she loves the chaos and authenticity of dance.
"Normally, creating a piece is chaotic right until you put it on a stage. I think that's the beauty of it. It makes it so authentic and genuine, the fact that it's always growing and it's always changing, like dance is a living thing," Gustaveson said.
Both student choreographers said dance is how they express the feelings they cannot put into words.
"I feel like dance is the expression of my soul — body, mind, spirit. Dance is the way that I can feel and express things that I can't put into words ... everything about it is very therapeutic to me and also very sacred," Smith said.
Those who wish to attend future DancEnsemble performances can find more information at onstage.byu.edu.