ASHLAND – Bobby Wesner opened his class by telling students to think about dance from the inside out.
“So we’re thinking about our spine, our skeleton, placement, structure … Think about the shoulders and the chin being back,” Wesner told the Ashland High School students assembled for his master class.
Along with his wife, Brooke, Wesner is co-founder of the contemporary ballet company Neos Dance Theatre.
At one point in the class, students were asked to think about their head as if they had no jaw and to align their skull with their spine. Later, they were asked to imagine they were on a roller coaster. Then they pictured their movement as a well-designed freeway ramp, allowing them to flow right onto the highway rather than to accelerate quickly.
Through their efforts to embody these analogies and to mimic Wesner’s fluid movements in a sequence of dance moves he taught, the students found themselves moving in ways they’d never imagined.
Longtime dancers and relative novices alike came away feeling changed.
Senior Katie Obermiller has been dancing for 12 years but said the class taught her things she will carry with her in the future.
“I take a modern class at my studio, but it was different learning the alignment that our head needs to be in and our spine,” she said. “I’m used to being so tight, so being taught to loosen up was different for me.”
Senior Natalie Shreffler, another longtime dancer, said she admired the work of Bobby and Brooke Wesner long before the class and was excited to have an opportunity to work with them and to learn a new style of dance.
“I’ve done a lot of jazz and tap, but this just feels more freeing and really natural,” she said. “It feels like you’re just using everything. It just felt like the way your body is supposed to be moving.”
Senior Seth Jerabek appreciated that though Wesner is a professional dancer, he was encouraging and not intimidating.
“I know the Wesners and the vibe of their family is just so open and accepting, and that really reflected in the way that he taught dance,” he said.
Wesner seemed to enjoy the class as much as his students.
“There were some that you could tell have never really taken a dance class before, so that was really fun to see the A for effort,” he said. “But there were some that really peeled off a couple layers and simplified the movement, stretched a little more and just kind of found a neutral place to move. It was kind of a fascinating watch.”
Wednesday’s master class was just one part of a week-long artists-in-residency program of Neos Dance Theatre call M.A.D.E. (Music, Art, Dance, Education) in Ashland.
“I think experiences like that create opportunities for new light bulbs to go off,” Wesner said of the class. “In the full scope of the whole week that we’re here, we’re encountering some of these same students in maybe four or five different ways, and each way will be a greater impact because they can combine it with the other connection they had with us.”
Midway through the residency, Wesner said he is enjoying the collaborations with visual artists, singers, Ashland High School and Ashland University.
“Every time you get to a new stage or a new space and you have new collaborators, you always wonder how it’s going to go or what the relationship will feel like, and this has been such a welcoming and loving place,” he said.
M.A.D.E. in Ashland culminates in a performance 8 p.m. March 17 in Ashland High School’s Archer Auditorium. In addition to 14 Neos company dancers, the performance features Grammy Award winner Sylvia McNair and her pianist, Kevin Cole; local visual artists Marty Bossler Lee, Betty Perry and Susan Shafer; the Ashland High School A capella choir, under the direction of Kimberly Wolbert; and local pianist Susan Gregg.
Tickets are $10-$18 at the Ashland University Box Office. For more infomration, visit www.neosdancetheatre.org/madeinashland.
