Moving the Spirit Students embrace on Elizabeth Baker Theatre's stage before a recent dress rehearsal. Assistant Professor Travis Gatling demonstrates a move in a Putnam Hall studio. Madeleine Scott bites down on an apple as the velvet curtain in Elizabeth Baker Theatre slowly crawls toward the ceiling. Scott keeps pace with the wild beat by nodding her head. Then the music stops, and the dancers freeze in silence, exhaling their exhaustion through heaving chests.
Students form a back-rub chain.
The quiet reverence doesn't last long. Professors begin barking orders and the dancers who had been watching slip backstage for their dress rehearsal pieces. The performers walk off stage wiping their brows and thinking only that tomorrow night, it's the real thing. Although students and professors are immersed in the daily grind of technique classes, choreography training and rehearsals, they share a mutual respect for each other and the reputation they embrace as part of the Ohio University School of Dance. Sophomore Colin Shelton stretches.