The sounds of Mozart and Bach fill the room as 20 neuroscience, public health and International Studies majors chassé, temps lié and grand jeté across the floor. Students walk in consumed with thoughts of Orgo Lab and economics and 90 minutes later, they emerge as ballerinas.
The Caplan Dance Studio in the Mattin Center comes alive on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with these 20 collegiate dancers, hoping to get away from the usual stress of Hopkins life. I cherish these three hours every week, my opportunity to focus on my body and to simply focus on myself.
The teacher, Lisa, always makes me smile. She’s your typical ballet teacher, soft-spoken and gentle, just like all the ballet teachers that I had as a child. The studio is simple: slippery wood floor, fingerprint-covered mirror wall and an imposing orange velvet curtain that cloaks the right wall.
On the other side of the room, opposite the heavy curtain, is a vast window, outside of which are grand trees that lost their leaves to winter, yet always catch my eye nonetheless.
I walk in, stretch and sit in silence in the back of the studio. I observe the other dancers, noticing whether more people are wearing pink or black tights, and how many people have their hair in a bun, deciding how I want to style myself. We take our respective places at the bar, I assume my spot facing the mirror for first side. Some simple pliés, tendus and ronde de jambes later we put the bars away and begin to work in the center.
We jump and then take our place in the corner to begin moving across the floor. Dancers fly through space, and as class ends, we all gather our things and return to the real world.
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