Valley native shares dance expertise with Chaney students

By DENISE DICK

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

They crawled, somersaulted and rolled across the floor in the Chaney Visual and Performing Arts dance room.

They bent their backs over desks, slid along tables and flipped over benches.

Guest artist Jennine Willet, a Mahoning Valley native, led Chaney VPA dance students Thursday through a series of movements. For one exercise, she instructed them to move across the floor as if they were in a low-ceiling room. In another, they were to incorporate a desk, folding chair, wooden bench or table into their movement.

“It’s really opened me up to new ideas,” said senior LaRazia Tolbert, 17. “My mind is blown right now.”

When Willet first told the students to use the furniture in their movements, LaRazia didn’t know what to think.

“She told us to experiment and explore and to try it out,” she said.

LaRazia learned she could do new things she hadn’t considered.

Willet is co-artistic director of Third Rail Projects, a dance-theater company that engages audiences in its contemporary performances.

She lives in New York City. She and the company’s other two artistic directors have been performing in New York and abroad for 15 years, winning awards and accolades along the way.

Third Rail Projects’ long-running work, “Then She Fell,” was named one of the top 10 shows of 2012 by a New York Times writer.

Willet urged the students to try new things, allowing one movement to melt into the next.

“It was a new experience,” said freshman Lysa Santiago, 15.

At first, for example, she worried about whether the table would withstand her weight, but she learned to trust it.

“It felt really freeing,” Lysa said. “It was freeing to let yourself just do what you wanted to do.”

Shimyia Hugley, 13, an eighth-grader, said it was fun.

“I liked all of it,” she said. “You were able to move freely and do your own thing.”