I Want to Put Dance in my Films

Image from one of Alvin Ailey’s groundbreaking dances

For many years I had a rule that in every film I made, I had to include horses in them. The majestic beauty and awe of a horse just standing still was always something I felt needed to be celebrated through capturing it in a moving picture. And horses always steal the show.

I am a lover of beauty. I have always been in awe of God’s creation, and one of my favorite elements of creativity is movement though the body and dance. I remember seeing White Christmas as a young child and thinking how in the world do those women fly around like that? I think that was my first time to see dance incorporated into film. Little did I know that White Christmas and the choreography of Robert Alton was planting seeds for my future desire to incorporate dance within film.

Still from White Christmas (1954)

In college, when getting my Theatre degree at Louisiana Tech, I was privileged to be trained under the amazing Dianne Maroney. She was a dancer from Alvin Ailey Dance Co. who taught modern and ballet classes in my theatre program. I took dance four days a week for four years, and honestly it was one of the highlights of my college experience training as a performer. By the time I had finished college my senior year, I had choreographed my own dance piece that was about 22 minutes long where the focus was women taking up their own space and overcoming eating disorders. After graduating college and moving to Los Angeles, I continued my studies at Santa Monica College, finding great fulfillment in modern dance. In 2022, I was reconnected with my passion for dance through a dance company that had moved to Baton Rouge called Vagabond Dance taught by Scarlet Wyne that taught a “movement for all” class that incoported modern dance with movement within the body for all ages. While taking that class I kept getting visions and images of films/ideas. While I was dancing, I felt like I was entering an open portal of creativity. I have since started taking ballet twice a week at Dancers’ Workshop and found it to be quite healing and giving me the balance that I need in my life.

Most recently I went to Dancers’ Workshops’s fall recital, and I had quite the epiphany that any film I make from here on out must have movement and dance incorporated into it. I was so inspired by the young dancers and the work they’ve put into their craft. Again I was awestruck by the beauty and capacity to bring such discipline and vigorous grace alive through the connection of the body and music. Some things just need to be captured in film because they are timeless and awe-inspiring, like the body and the beauty of a horse. With my passion for beauty, I want to make films that are beautiful and celebrate the goodness of shape and form. I can’t wait to see how I can incorporate dance and movement into my next films.

Performance of “Swan Lake” by American Ballet Theatre at the Met Opera in New York

Dancers at the Dancers’ Workshop studio in Baton Rouge (photo by 225 Magazine)