Some girls dream of being a ballerina, wearing a pretty tutu and tip-toeing around on a stage with a tiara on their heads and a smile on their faces.

Jennifer Schonschack, journalism and Spanish senior, has been working on this childhood dream for 19 years.

When Schonschack was 7 years old, she said she had a friend who was taking dance classes and invited Schonschack to come over for a friend’s day.

Afterward, the teacher called Schonschack’s mother and told her it would be a good idea to enroll her in the class.

“[The teacher] saw kind of a natural talent in me,” Schonschack said, “so I started taking it the following year and I’ve been dancing ever since.”

After one year at the studio, she began to audition for roles in the community, starting with the local production of the Christmas show “The Nutcracker.”

“I started out as a mouse,” she said, “but, every year I was given progressively more parts or more parts to understudy.”

Schonschack said she was never the stand-out role in any of her productions. However, her biggest role was performing as the Snow Queen in “The Nutcracker.”

“I really loved that because you got applause for almost anything,” she said. “It was a technically difficult dance, but the audience always loved it.  The kids loved it too because you’re in a white tutu, and it’s sparkly, and there’s snow coming down.”

Throughout the years, Schonschack has been in “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake.” However, she said “The Great Gatsby” was one of her favorites.

Last year, Schonschack joined a modern dance company in Louisville called Moving Collective.

“When I thought there might be a chance that I couldn’t continue with the Louisville Ballet, or I wasn’t going to move and dance with another company, I was trying to think of what I could do locally, so I could still perform,” she said.

Schonschack said Moving Collective is different from the Louisville Ballet because the Louisville Ballet is very traditional, performing classical productions.

On the other hand, Moving Collective has choreographers who choreograph their shows based on inspirations in their life.

“One of the pieces in the upcoming show was inspired by the choreographer’s three dogs,” she said, “so her piece is going to be very light-hearted and funny whereas another choreographer’s piece is about battling your inner demons and just trying to stay strong and trying to stay on top of the things that can get us down.”

Schonschack said she could not pinpoint if she liked the traditional styles of the Louisville Ballet or the freedom of Moving Collective.

“One of the pieces I’m in now for Moving Collective I just love because the movement is so different, and I feel so much better in it,” she said, “but at the same point, when it gets close to Christmas and I hear Sugar Plum music, I just think I’d love to put on my point shoes and be dancing again.’”

Schonschack said she also danced in high school, but found the studio she was going to was not preparing her enough for college or going into a company, so she said she switched to a studio that was an hour away.

“I ended up having to drive an hour each way four days a week,” she said, “so that meant I had to give up all sports that I was doing. I had to give up doing student council. I basically had to give up doing any of my high school activities to dance.”

During her senior year of high school, one of her teachers began to push her to audition for companies, but she said she had always wanted to go to college.

“I knew I wanted to do a degree where I knew I was going to be dancing all the time, but I’d be getting an education, too,” she said.

Schonschack said if she had not gone to college, she would have never been given the opportunity to dance overseas in places like Poland and Russia.

One of the teachers at Butler University organized summer dance trips where they trained and performed.

“The great thing too about the trip is we saw so many shows, so we got to see some really amazing works done by the Russian ballet,” she said, “but we also got to see the European take on contemporary. We saw that more so in Poland.”

When it came to choosing degrees to go into, Schonschack said she always liked to write. She said  she would like to eventually write a book on her views about family and friends, and the different stages she has seen her friends go through.

She also said she would love to speak Spanish fluently and, after taking Spanish classes at IU Southeast for her major, she liked how easily the language came to her.

Schonschack said she would like to choreograph more for Moving Collective, since she has only done it a couple of times.

She also said when she thinks of her future and where she will go to take jobs she always has dance in the back of her mind.

“I always want to know if they have some form of contemporary dance group there,” she said. “I want to know if there is some small group that I can perform with.”

By AMANDA CHIAMULERA

Staff

alchiamu@umail.iu.edu